


Hide From The Sky (The Ocean Won't Judge)

by PageofD



Series: Welcome To Rapture (WTNV Bioshock AU) [1]
Category: BioShock, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Big Daddies, Fluff, Little Sisters, Look this isnt all the tags I'll prolly need but I'll add more as I think of them, M/M, Minor Character Death, Plasmids, Rapture (Bioshock), Smut, This is gonna get dark, mentions of human experimentation, weird science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:51:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8319811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PageofD/pseuds/PageofD
Summary: As Carlos drove, Kayali told him about Rapture, the city that Andrew Ryan built at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. A city where no one ruled, ‘No Gods or Kings, only Man’ was Ryan’s tagline. Rapture was a city where scientists ran free and held no fear of Ethics Committees, where writers told all the tales they wished with no fear of the Board of Censors, where actors and performing artists took ‘Audience Participation’ to a whole new level, while the unaffected audience members laughed as they watched, only grieving when the curtain fell.--Here we go everyoneThe Bioshock Au is here and rollingI should prolly mention that no knowledge of Bioshock is needed to read this, all the important parts are explained in the story





	1. Pre-Rapture

**Author's Note:**

> First off I would like to low-key dedicate this fic to Emono, who listens to my ideas when I have them at ridiculous hours of the morning and spurs me on into making the ideas into full-on fics. Emono is one of my best friends and best editors and they deserve so much better than they get in life. So you know, if you're reading this Mono, I love you, you're great and this fic would not be happening if it wasn't for you <3.  
> So hey,  
> Thanks
> 
> Anyway.  
> This will be a story in 5 parts (as you've probably noticed from the chapter count). I have no set update schedule but basically I'm gonna be working on this (and bits of schoolwork) until I get my new computer _and_ access to my old hard drive so I can continue work on Maybe Its Not So Bad After All.  
>  Even if I get a new computer and access to my hard drive before this is done, though, I will still finish this (I have it all planned out, you see?)  
> Anyway I'm gonna shut up now and let you enjoy the story.  
> At the end I will put some links to some songs and Bioshock gameplay (just the start of the game) so you know, listen and watch, or don't. It's entirely up to you.  
> Either way, enjoy the story!

Carlos was introduced to the idea of Rapture by Doctor Sylvia Kayali, the leading supervisor on his PhD project. When she found him he was hunkered down on the outskirts of a small town in New Mexico, frantically packing his bags and getting ready to escape the townspeople. She knocked on his door and let herself in, sighing loudly at the sight of the blood splashed up his arms, still wet and smearing across all his belongings. Carlos scowled at her tapping foot and rolled eyes, tucking the knife he’d readied for his defence away and returning to his packing.

“I thought I taught you better than this.” She said, pacing dismissively around the small house while Carlos ran to and fro, packing clothes, tools, books and all his notes.

“It was an accident.” Carlos growled, forcing his suitcase closed and heaving his backpack onto his shoulder. “Are you here to help me or scold me?” Carlos pushed past Kayali and out his front door, throwing his bags into the trunk of the car he’d stolen three states over and climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Oh, to help for sure.” Kayali answered, climbing into the passenger seat carefully and tutting at the blood streak Carlos had left on her dress.

Carlos said nothing as he pulled out of the driveway, throwing the car into gear and racing down Main Street, and later the highway, as fast as he could. 

Carlos continued to drive in silence, on edge and aware that they were likely being followed, until the sun set. He pulled over into the first motel he saw, a dingy little place with two storeys and maybe ten rooms in total, another car of the same model and colour in its parking lot. Kayali bought them two rooms for the night, both on the second storey and both with windows opening onto the fire escape. It paid to have an escape route handy. 

Carlos carried his belongings to his room and shut himself in for the night, ignoring Kayali’s hammering on the door and offers of food, too focussed on trying to sort out which of his things were too stained and which could still be salvaged. The final verdict, after lots of cursing and ineffectual throwing of shirts, was that most of Carlos’ wardrobe had to be dumped. Too much had blood smeared across it, already dry and settled deep into the fabric. His books were less affected, and his notes and tools already had so many body fluids smeared across them that a little more blood wasn’t really noticeable, but Carlos would still have to find time and money to get a new wardrobe.

Frustrated with himself, Carlos took a rough shower, running the water so hot it scalded him as worked the blood out of his skin where it had dried with harsh scrubbing that left him red up to the elbows. He dressed in one of his blood-smeared sleep shirt and fell into bed, sleeping fitfully and waking up well before the sun rose.

Carlos laid in bed for a minute, sighing and watching the sky brighten slowly behind the gossamer curtains in the front window. It  _ had _ been an accident,  _ this _ time, hurting  _ this _ kid, but the townspeople either didn’t believe or didn’t care. Carlos pulled himself upright with a groan and dressed quickly, haphazardly pulling on a shirt and pants from the ‘clean enough to pass for now’ pile and grabbing a screwdriver from his backpack before creeping out of his room into the chill morning air, knocking on Kayali’s door to wake her as he passed her door on his way to the parking lot. Carlos approached ‘his’ car slowly, meandering along and watching the lazy driving of commuters along the highway, and crouched down to inspect the number plate, slipping his screwdriver from his pocket and unscrewing the plate, keeping the screws tucked into his palm and catching the loose plate before it could clatter to the ground. With the plate tucked under his arm, Carlos made his way to the other car in the lot, unscrewing its plate and replacing it with his car’s plate, muttering a soft, unheard, apology to the car owners as he attached their plate to his car. It was for his own safety. If anyone from that town caught up with them they’d follow this car instead of Carlos’. 

His work done, Carlos made his way back upstairs, rapping on Kayali’s door again, waiting to hear a confirmation that she was awake before continuing on to his room emptying it of everything he wanted/needed to take with him, leaving a lot of his clothes strewn about the room from where he had thrown them the previous night. 

Carlos left his room, backpack secured over his shoulder as he let the door swing shut loudly behind him. He stood outside Kayali’s door and knocked on it again, counting thirty seconds before knocking yet again, and then another thirty before Kayali opened the door, leaving Carlos to catch himself mid-knock, all perfectly coiffed hair and delicately applied make up.

“Took your time.” Carlos grouched, now hyper aware of his own rumpled state of being.

“Yes, well. A girl does have to look her best.” Kayali countered, securing her grip on her bag and leading the way down to the car. “So what was your plan? Where were you going to go next?” She asked, placing her bag gently in the trunk and climbing into the passenger seat gracefully.

“I don’t know. Away from New Mexico.” Carlos answered, slinging his own single bag into the back seat unceremoniously as he climbed into the driver’s seat. 

“What if I told you I knew of a safe place for people like us?” Kayali asked, smirking as Carlos pulled back onto the highway.

“‘People like us’.” Carlos scoffed. “Scientists or monsters?”

“Both.” Kayali said simply, pressing her red-shaded lips together to keep from smiling.

“I’d tell you you were delusional.” Carlos answered bitterly, pressing his foot to the gas to match speed with the cars around him.

“Get on a road heading East. I’ll tell you all about it on the way.” Kayali directed, a slight smirk on an otherwise stone-set face telling Carlos that she wouldn’t budge on this.

“Fine, okay.” Carlos sighed, scanning the upcoming exit warnings. “Anywhere particular Eastwards?”

“New York would be good.” Kayali answered, settling in for a long drive and humming a soft tune to herself.

“New York it is.” Carlos muttered.

oOo

As Carlos drove, Kayali told him about Rapture, the city that Andrew Ryan built at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. A city where no one ruled, ‘No Gods or Kings, only Man’ was Ryan’s tagline. Rapture was a city where scientists ran free and held no fear of Ethics Committees, where writers told all the tales they wished with no fear of the Board of Censors, where actors and performing artists took ‘Audience Participation’ to a whole new level, while the unaffected audience members laughed as they watched, only grieving when the curtain fell. 

Kayali sold it well, giving Carlos names of Unconventional Scientists who had dropped off the radar and presumably retreated to Rapture, of writers she knew he appreciated who were presumed to be there too. By the time they stopped for the night, Carlos was thoroughly sold on the city and rearing to restock his belongings and jump on a boat to the middle of the Atlantic. Kayali’s offers of his own lab space, an almost unlimited pool of test subjects  _ and _ contemporaries who fully shared the same limitations Carlos found on the surface, only added to Carlos’ already long list of pros. Rapture was perfect for Carlos, and who was he to deny the siren’s call of what was undoubtedly Andrew Ryan’s greatest achievement?

That night Carlos dreamt of a vast city full of playthings, bodies he could do whatever he wanted with, and coworkers who wouldn’t think he was crazy for wanting to do them. He dreamt of making his PhD hypothesis a reality, of making an actual Frankenstein creature and being rewarded, not disgraced for it. Carlos woke in the morning well-rested and ready to put in a long day of driving, but first he needed more clothes, more notebooks, fresh scalpels and a new lab coat. Luckily, Kayali was also wanting to get new clothes and notebooks and was easily convinced to delay their leave for an hour or so while they shopped and, especially luckily for Carlos, was willing and ready to pick up the tab, to be repaid in hard work done in Rapture, where she would  _ technically _ be in charge. 

With their shopping done, and the back of the car now filled with extra luggage, the pair got on the road again, Carlos driving as long as he possibly could in his eagerness to get to Rapture, to be able to stretch his wings, as such. As they drove, passing through state after state on their winding path to New York, Kayali told Carlos all she knew about Rapture, which was not much beyond the project dates. She told him that construction had started in 45, and that people who were suspected to have gone to Rapture had started disappearing as early as November in 46. 

“They trusted the structure that soon?” Carlos asked incredulously, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to raise an eyebrow at Kayali.

“Evidently.” Kayali said dryly, pressing a finger against Carlos’ chin to turn him back to face the road. “Eyes on the road, Ramirez. We don’t want to crash now, do we?”

Carlos huffed but kept his eyes on the road from then on, just humming and nodding as Kayali continued to talk about the way the construction was still going on, the new areas being built in Rapture, and giving non-committal answers when Carlos asked how, exactly, she knew everything she did.

That day Carlos drove until he was dozing off, Kayali having fallen asleep long ago and the sky long since dark. After one particularly bad incident, with Carlos jerking awake barely in time to steer the car away from the roadside, leaving him gasping for breath with his heart hammering in his chest, Carlos vowed to stop at the next motel he saw. 

After herding Kayali, first to reception to get rooms for them, and then to said rooms, Carlos was ready to fall into bed and pass out cold. But when he laid himself in bed, just stripped of his day wear rather than dressed in his pajamas, Carlos found himself staring at the ceiling, fingertips tingling in his excitement as he realised they were less than a day’s drive away from New York and, by extension, Rapture. His toes twitched and his mind ran and Carlos found himself utterly exhausted by morning, not having slept with his mind too busy planning the experiments he’d run.

Kayali ended up driving the last few hours to New York, initially muttering about how rude it was for Carlos to make her drive when she’d been paying for all of his expenses, only letting up when she realised her protégé was fast asleep, leaned uncomfortably against the car window with his glasses pressed off-center. Carlos woke when the car came to a jolting stop, Kayali having hit the cement block marking the end of the parking spot she had pulled into.

“We’re here Ramirez. Wake up.” She said curtly, ignoring the startled yell Carlos had given as he woke.

“Where’s here?” Carlos asked, climbing out of the car and stretching out his cramped body.

“The ship that will take us to Rapture. Now get your things, it’s not going to wait on us.” Kayali snapped, shutting the trunk and walking off, her bags in hand, leaving Carlos to gather himself and follow or get utterly lost.

Carlos gathered his bags, fumbling and almost dropping them in his haste as he tried to hold them and shut the car, all while keeping an eye on Kayali so he could catch up to her. Carlos jogged after his supervisor, still trying to get his backpack straps properly situated on his shoulders without dropping his suitcase again. 

Carlos caught up quickly, not that Kayali was trying particularly hard to lose him, and finally settled his backpack right, freeing up a hand to block the sun from his eyes as he looked up the side of the ocean liner they were approaching.

“Do we actually have tickets for this?” He asked, turning his attentions back to the flow of the crowd being directed to one of three gangplanks, presumably depending on where their cabins were located.

“Of course we do, Doctor Ramirez. What kind of woman do you think I am?” Kayali said, digging around in her handbag for a sheet of paper, which she showed to one of the porters giving directions.

“Welcome aboard Doctors,” The young man said, grinning and bowing to the pair. “Second gangplank along if you please, there will be someone there to give you further directions.”

“Thank you, have a good day.” Carlos said, nodding to the porter and trailing along after Kayali as she strode forwards through the crowd.

They joined the stream of people making their way up the gangplank, chattering loudly amongst themselves while Carlos and Kayali stood in silence, stepping forwards when there was room and otherwise being generally jostled around by the movement of too many people in a relatively confined place. 

The porter at the top of the gangplank directed them to a cabin down one level and three quarters of the way along a corridor which happened to be little more than a closet, with two beds, storage space under the beds and a divider curtain down the middle of the room. As they were storing their suitcases, Carlos found out they could barely even stand back-to-back and retain room to move. 

“This is ridiculous.” He sighed, flopping onto his bed and wincing as it groaned under his weight. 

“We’re only going to be here for the rest of today and tomorrow.” Kayali snapped, lowering herself onto her bed more delicately, picking up a notebook and pencil she’d laid out and starting to write something down. “Use the time wisely, Ramirez. It would be beneficial to have an idea of what exactly you’ll be doing when we arrive in Rapture.”

“Speaking of,” Carlos said, sitting himself up and ignoring Kayali’s rolled eyes. “How exactly are we getting from here, on this ship, to Rapture? I can’t imagine it will stop to let us off.” He continued, rummaging around under his bed blindly, looking for his backpack and notebooks.

“No, it won’t.” Kayali sighed, tapping her pencil against her lips before adding another note to her page. “You are going to go and find a crewman who knows about the lighthouse, between Greenland and Iceland.” Kayali explained, talking slowly like Carlos was a young boy. “And when you find this crewman, you will bribe him to alert us as we are passing the lighthouse, which should be sometime tomorrow night. You will also bribe him to give us a lifeboat, and help us and the boat get off this ship, so that you can row us across to the lighthouse.”

Carlos huffed, pausing halfway through pulling a notebook from his bag. “And with what money am I to bribe him?” Carlos asked, freeing his notebook and slumping back onto his bed.

“The money I will give you as soon as we are underway.” Kayali said, shaking her head slowly. “Really, Ramirez. I thought you were smarter than this. How  _ did _ you ever manage to complete your PhD?”

Carlos frowned and huffed again, looking away from Kayali and straightening his glasses. “I think I’ll go sit on the deck. Enjoy some of the last sunlight I’ll be able to get.” He snapped, tugging a few pencils out of the pencil case he’d tucked into the side pocket of his bag. “I don’t know when I’ll be back, don’t wait up.” Carlos sneered, leaving the cabin and only just keeping himself from slamming the door shut behind him. He may have been mad, but he was not a child throwing a tantrum.

oOo

Carlos spent the remaining daylight hours on the upper deck, soaking up the sun and taking notes diligently through the noise of people shouting farewells off the side of the ship, at first, and then the general noise of people on a cross-atlantic trip for the first time. The upper deck only got busier as the sun slipped towards the horizon, more people coming out to watch the ocean as the sun set, couples walking around holding hands, parents trying to herd their children, crewmembers moving amongst the rest of them, just to offer help if it was needed. And Carlos sat, tucked away in a corner with his notebook and pencils, watching it all dispassionately and trying to come up with at least three experiments he could run in Rapture. 

By the time the sun had set and the deck had been filled just by couples seeking a quiet, romantic, place to sit and talk and  _ cuddle _ , Carlos had the beginnings of an experiment, one to reaffirm what his PhD hypothesised, and one that he could easily run, practically in his sleep due to his familiarity on the subject. After the third time a young couple had stumbled into him, lips pressed together and hands roaming only to jerk apart with a giggle and a ‘Oh gosh I’m sorry sir’, Carlos had packed himself up and wandered back down to his and Kayali’s cabin. 

Kayli greeted Carlos with a soft noise, shutting her notebook with a snap and sitting up to stretch delicately. 

“Shall we try and find something to eat?” She asked, tucking the notebook under her pillow and standing to slip her feet back into her shoes.

“I suppose.” Carlos answered, suddenly aware of the hunger gnawing at his stomach. He tucked his notebook away in the same fashion Kayali had done with hers, and took a moment to straighten his shirt before he followed Kayali out of the cabin and towards the dining room.

“Any luck finding a crewmember yet?” She asked as they walked, mostly side by side but occasionally in single file as another passenger came along.

“Not yet.” Carlos answered, tucking his hands into his pockets and tucking himself behind Kayali as a pair of kids came barreling down the hallway. “I spent most of the afternoon ignoring everyone.”

Kayali tutted, leading Carlos around a corner and into the noise of the dining hall. “Carlos, darling,” she started, voice scathing as they waited for a waiter to direct them to a table. “You need to step up and pull your weight or we will end up sailing right past Rapture to Liverpool.” Kayali smiled widely, expression contradicting her previous tone of voice as a waiter approached and guided them to a small table at the edge of the main lighting.

Carlos sighed heavily, picking up his menu and scanning the items on offer, definitely not using it to shield him from Kayali’s anger.

The meal passed in comparative silence, each of the scientists eating quickly, trading bites with sips of wine and only acknowledging each other with hums and soft ‘this is good, isn’t it?’s. When the meal was done and they were leaving the dining room, Kayali fixed Carlos with a look and cleared her throat pointedly.

“I think I will retire now. Do try not to wake me as you return.” Kayali said, voice chilled like their wine had been as she slipped a small purse into Carlos’ hand and sashayed down the hallway.

Carlos tucked the purse into his pocket with his hands and started off in the other direction, whistling a soft tune to himself as he followed signs to the closest set of stairs to the upper decks.

It took Carlos a half hour to find a crewman who knew about the lighthouse, and once he found a crewman it was easy to bribe him, considering Kayali had given him almost a hundred and fifty dollars with which to bribe the guy. After a brief hushed conversation, where Carlos pressed three rumpled twenty dollar bills into the crewman’s hand and promised him more when he woke Carlos and Kayali as they passed the lighthouse, Carlos was done with his job and ready to turn in for the night. 

The next day passed quickly, both scientists sleeping in and spending the main part of the day shut off from each other working on their own projects. Carlos worked straight through lunch, though Kayali returned with some kind of vegetable-filled pastry in a paper bag for Carlos, which he are gratefully even as he kept working on his experiment notes, writing formulae and drawing sketches, filling page after page with his cramped scrawl and half-finished sentences that trailed off into new formulae. 

By the time the sun set and the dinner crowd passed towards the dining room, Carlos had the beginnings of a secondary experiment, to make a sentient cloud, outlined and designated to be finalised when they got to Rapture. Carlos passed on dinner when Kayali asked if he wanted to accompany her to the dining room, waving her off with a promise that he’d track down a sandwich later as he chewed on the end of his pencil and flicked back and forth between different pages of his notes. He settled on a blank page, the last one he had left himself before his initial notes on the cloud project, and started a basic to-do list, starting with establishing his lab space and finding test subjects. Carlos’ head drooped as he stared at the two-pointed to-do list, trying to come up with a more thorough list even as he slipped from consciousness.

Carlos was shaken awake by Kayali, jolting back and hitting his head on the wall behind him with a bitten-off curse as he realised what was happening and, once he saw the crewman hovering anxiously in the doorway, why he was being woken.

“It’s time?” He asked, muffling a yawn with the back of his hand as he hurried to stuff his notebook into his backpack and heave it onto his back.

“It’s time Ramirez.” Kayali said, her teeth gleaming in the muted lights of the hallway as she grinned at Carlos.

They gathered their belongings and followed the crewman to the upper deck and around to the other side of the boat, where the man started undoing the cover of one of the lifeboats and prepared to drop it over the side.

“You’ll have to be quiet.” He said, hushed and hurried as he helped Carlos get Kayali and their cases settled into the boat. “At least until you’re a mile out. Keep low and wait or you’ll be spotted and I’ll lose my job.” The man kept looking around, sticking his head up to make sure they were clear before ducking again to untie some knots and retie others and make sure the paddles were secured until they would be needed. 

“Thank you for your help.” Carlos said, patting the man’s shoulder as he climbed into the boat.

The man gave a half-smile, straightening once more and letting out a loud whistle before ducking again as Carlos and Kayali gaped at him.

“What was that?” Carlos hissed, grabbing the crewman’s collar. “Who did you just alert?”

“No one! My friend! I can’t lower you myself and it’s okay you won’t have to pay extra, I’ll split it with him just fine I promise!” The man explained hurriedly, hands raised in defence.

“Let him go Ramirez, the boy’s right.” Kayali said, sighing and checking her nails. “But you had best make sure you pay him enough to split decently.” 

Carlos grumbled but let the crewman’s collar go just as another crewman appeared, young-faced and bouncing.

“This them, then? Good. Let’s go before we’re caught.” He said, already untying the first securing cord and helping his coworker swing the lifeboat out over the edge. 

“Here. The rest of your pay.” Carlos said, tossing the purse to the floor at their feet as they started lowering the boat. “Ninety dollars. Thank you.” 

“Thank you, sir. Have a pleasant trip.” The second crewman said, heaving on the ropes and lowering the boat further, leaving them to a controlled descent down to the water level.

They hit the water with a muted slap and a jolt for the boat’s occupants, waiting for the go-ahead from the crewmen before Carlos started rowing them towards the lighthouse.

It was a long row. The ship’s route had put them quite a ways from the lighthouse and by the time they could see it clearly enough to be able to gauge how far away they were, Carlos’ arms were burning from the strain of rowing. As they got closer, Kayali turning in her seat to watch the lighthouse grow in her eyes, they could see the lighthouse wasn’t lit up at all, just a pillar of whiteness reflecting the moon’s light outwards from itself.

Carlos pushed on, grunting softly with the strain of rowing, too eager to get to the lighthouse to want to stop and give himself a break. As he rowed, Carlos couldn’t help but look down, eyes straining to catch a glimpse of the city that was hidden leagues beneath them. He could see a glimmer of light, either the scales of a sea creature reflecting the moonlight or one of the city lights, winking and shimmering with the undulations of the sea as Carlos and Kayali inched towards the lighthouse, towards their entry point as Carlos grew impatient to arrive already. 

As they crawled closer, Carlos felt a jittery sort of anticipation build up in his stomach, making his heart pound in his throat and his fingers and toes tingle while his arms shook from exertion and his vision blurred with sea water on his glasses and excited tears pooling in his eyes. They came to a halt with a soft crunch of wood scraping against wood as their boat jolted up against a small makeshift dock, mostly hidden beneath the higher ocean waves. The dock was a flimsy thing, its height varying as it bobbed with the ocean water, and it didn’t seem to be supported by anything underneath it, so Carlos used a single paddle to propel their boat along the length of the dock, wedging the end of the paddle between the sodden slats and heaving along it to drag them, even more slowly than when they had been rowing, towards the lighthouse stairs. Kayali huffed and tutted, muttering comments like ‘can’t you do this any faster’ and ‘good gracious Ramirez what are you  _ doing _ ? You’re  _ wasting time. _ ’

Carlos huffed and ignored Kayali, continuing the slow wedge-push-retrieve-repeat action that was getting them closer to the steps of the lighthouse with each passing second. They reached the lighthouse with a muted grating noise and the flicker of two light posts set at the end of the stairs lighting up. Carlos pushed the boat out just a little further, grabbing hold of the closest light post and turning the boat so the back of it was wedged between the little dock and the lowest step, making for a somewhat stable stepping stone to the first of the dry steps.

“Here, I’ll help you out first and then pass you our bags” Carlos said, balancing carefully and reaching a hand out to help Kayali to her feet. “Go slowly so the boat doesn’t capsize.” Carlos said softly, shuffling around the boat as she moved so it didn’t tip and only picking up his canvas backpack and Kayali’s handbag as some water splashed over the edge, threatening to soak their notes. Carlos helped Kayali step across to the dry steps, grabbing frantically for the light post to stabilize himself as her evacuating weight nearly made the boat tip and send him into the icy ocean water.

Carlos swore softly as he regained his balance and slowly passed all the bags to Kayali, standing impatiently on the steps and watching dismissively as Carlos passed the bags and then jumped off the boat himself, leaving the boat to rock gently and drift away from the lighthouse as he swung his backpack onto his back and picked up his suitcase, letting Kayali lead the way up the steps and to the huge doors marking the entrance to the lighthouse. 

Carlos shivered in the cold breeze coming off the ocean, wishing for a thicker coat as more lights flickered on in their approach to the doors, making a figure tucked beside the door straighten up and step forwards to greet them.

“Doctor Kayali, I presume?” He asked, voice rough like he spent most days shouting over loud machinery, and held a hand out for Kayali to take, brushing his lips across her knuckles.

“Yes. And this is my protégé, Doctor Ramirez.” Kayali said, gesturing to Carlos and smiling gently.

“Doctor Ramirez,” The man said, nodding to Carlos respectfully and shouldering one of the huge doors open. “My name’s Steve Carlsberg, I usually work down in Hephaestus, that’s in engineering, but we each have a rostered day to come up here and wait for guests.” Steve said, ushering Carlos and Kayali into the lighthouse with a soft chuckle. “It’s mighty chilly out, it’ll be warmer in Rapture. Speaking of, you’re almost late. Any later and Ryan woulda gone to bed and we’d be stranded here til morning.” Steve babbled, flicking a switch on the wall and lighting the lighthouse up to reveal a looming statue of Andrew Ryan himself, leering down at the group with a banner proclaiming ‘No Gods or Kings, Only Men’ hung beneath him. “Welcome to Rapture.” Steve joked, gesturing to the statue.

“Welcome to Rapture indeed.” Carlos murmured, stepping over to a railing in the middle of the room and peering down the round hole to a metal contraption bobbing in the water beneath them. 

“Right this way, if you please.” Steve said, guiding them beneath Ryan’s statue and down a set of stairs that doubled back on itself and opened out into a sort of docking area, filled with the scent of the sea, the soft slapping of water against a metal hull and a gentle tune being played from hidden speakers. As they followed Steve down a swooping staircase to the dock proper Carlos recognised the song, chuckling to himself as his fit the title ‘La Mer’ to the melodic violin and guitar.

The contraption bobbing in the ocean turned out to be an enclosed vessel, with warm lighting and velvet-lined benches inside and a door made almost entirely of glass with a heavy-duty seal around the edge.

“I’ll just call ahead, let Mr Ryan know we’ll be needing him to manage the controls. If you’ll take a seat in the Bathysphere, doctors.” Steve said, reaching into the Bathysphere for a hand-held radio and turning away to make the call to Rapture.

Kayali crossed the small metal gangplank with no qualms, settling into a seat and tucking her suitcase between her feet even while Carlos hovered, unable to clear the image of it crumpling under the pressure as they were lowered down.

“Is this safe?” Carlos asked, fiddling with the straps of his backpack and jumping as Steve returned from his radio conversation and slapped his shoulder.

“Of course it is, Doctor! Why this Bathysphere has carried many sets of settlers down without even the tiniest of leaks! Mr Ryan had the best engineers money could buy on this, you know? Not just for Rapture,” Steve laughed and shook his head. “No sir, not just on Rapture but also for the Bathyspheres and this lighthouse. I can assure you they’re perfectly safe.” Steve said, giving Carlos’ shoulder another pat and climbing into the Bathysphere himself.

“Doctor Ramirez, if you are doubting the methods of travel here, how will you manage in Rapture? If Ryan can build an entire city at the bottom of the ocean, I do not doubt that he can build a safe way to get down and back.” Kayali called, voice echoing oddly from inside the Bathysphere.

“It is one thing to build a city at the bottom of the ocean, you only need to build it well enough to withstand a continuous amount of pressure. It is more straining to materials to have to undergo changing amounts of pressure along a journey.” Carlos argued, leaning forwards to see Kayali better in the Bathysphere.

“Be that as it may, if Ryan thinks it is safe, then I believe him. And it would do you good to believe him too.” Kayali said, a second short of stamping her foot against the metal floor. “Stop being so stubborn, Doctor Ramirez, and get in the Bathysphere.”

Carlos huffed to himself but climbed into the Bathysphere, swinging his backpack off his shoulders and settling into a seat across from Kayali, his backpack and suitcase squeezed between his feet.. 

“Don’t pout about it Ramirez. You’re an adult now, not the frowning boy you used to be.” Kayali said dismissively, sighing and looking out the front window as Steve stepped forwards with a grin to pull the door shut, pushing and tugging on it to ensure the seal was tight before he lifted the radio to his mouth and spoke into it again. 

“House to Rapture. We’re all settled in Mr Ryan, ready for descent, over.” Steve grinned and listened for the affirmative response before slotting the radio away and stepping over sit beside the single lever in the back of the Bathysphere “These can only be controlled by Ryan’s DNA, you know? It’s why your entry time was scheduled, so it wouldn’t interrupt important business.” Steve said, grinning as the Bathysphere jolted downwards, making Carlos swear softly. “Oh, I’m supposed to tell you, as we go, you’ll likely feel your ears pop once or twice. At first we have a vertical descent to Rapture’s level, and there’s a short film from Mr Ryan himself about Rapture.” Steve finished, leaning back with a relaxed smile as the Bathysphere started to descend in earnest, depth measures passing by as they dropped and dropped, Carlos muttering quiet pressure calculations to himself and fidgeting in his seat as they went.

After the 18 fathom mark a screen dropped down in front of the window and the lights in the Bathysphere dimmed as Steve let out a small laugh. 

“Ooh this is it, this is  _ good _ .” He laughed, mouthing along as the video started.

“I’m Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question…” The video started, the screen filled with an image of Ryan sitting at his desk. As the video played the Bathysphere creaked gently and Carlos’ ears popped at the pressure change. He could hear the sounds of the ocean outside the Bathysphere, the movement of water around them and the song of whales as they swam. 

The image on the video changed, a man wiping his brow to a man fleeing an eagle to a man fleeing the hand of God to a man fleeing a sickle representing the Communist Regime. Through it all Ryan was talking, but Carlos paid him no mind. He was already approaching Rapture, he didn’t need to be preached to, he didn’t need to know what was wrong with the surface world, all he needed to do was survive the trip.

The Bathysphere creaked again and moved upwards a little, just as the screen dropped and Ryan pause for effect. “I chose… Rapture.” 

Carlos gaped as he looked out over the city, incomplete as it was. The outermost parts of the city were still being worked on by hulking figures in dive suits, but the finished parts were breathtaking. Buildings stood tall and defiant at the bottom of the ocean, windows lit and neon signs advertising Fleet Hall and Cocktail Bars hanging on the outsides. There were power lines and glass walkways crossing between buildings, some full of people stopping and waving cheerily at the approaching Bathysphere before continuing on their way. Carlos stood and pressed himself to the glass, amazed at this feat of engineering, this feat of  _ Ryan _ , and stared. Carlos saw schools of fish flutter by, he saw barnacles and starfish fixed to the glass walkways, he saw hundreds of tiny luminescent jellyfish floating their way along, and all the while there were these buildings full of people who would welcome him, would see the wonder in his achievements. 

Carlos was trembling by the time they reached the Bathysphere dock, precluded by a series of rings with the statement ‘All Good Things On This Earth Flow Into The City’ written on them, his fingers tingling and barely able to hold his suitcase as the Bathysphere entered the dock and raised them up to ‘dry land’, a lavish entry hall filled with plush carpets and the bustle of other new arrivals. The seal on the Bathysphere hissed open and Carlos heaved the door out of his way as he rushed straight down the walkway to press his face against the cold window, staring out as a whale drifted lazily past and just gaping at the city.

“Welcome to Rapture,” A smiling voice said, pulling Carlos away from the window to meet the eyes of Andrew Ryan himself, holding a hand out for Carlos to shake.

“Mr Ryan! A pleasure to meet you! I’m Doctor Carlos Ramirez, protégé of Doctor Sylvia Kayali, over there.” Carlos babbled, gesturing over to where Kayali was disembarking with more care than Carlos had shown, sniffing and patting down her hair before picking up her case and making her way down the walkway. “You have a wonderful city, Mr Ryan, I can’t wait to get settled in.” Carlos continued brightly, turning away as Kayali arrived, feeling his cheeks flush as his eyes filled with excited tears again.

He’d made it. He was in Rapture. Carlos couldn’t stop grinning as he trailed after Kayali and Ryan, Steve following along behind him as they were led through the rest of the welcoming lounge, past groups of people eager to give a smile and a wave as they passed towards a doorway, to one of the glass walkways, and across to the next building over. Ryan was speaking as they walked, but Carlos wasn’t paying attention. Kayali could fill him in later. For now, Carlos was more focussed on gaping at all the brightness and lightness, and how non-claustrophobic Rapture felt for a city at the bottom of the ocean.

They were led through more walkways and on another Bathysphere ride until they arrived in the Medical Pavillion, and shown down two levels to where their labs would be. Carlos took in the room, all big spaces and stainless steel fittings with a wide window looking out over the ocean floor, and had to take a series of deep breaths so he didn’t squeal or pass out from excitement. They were given their keys, little cards that would slot into place beside the door control lever so they could open it and no one else could, and then were shown to their apartments, in the lower levels of Olympus Heights. 

“I’ll leave you here then, let you both get settled in. Rent is free for the first month, but I’m sure you won’t have to worry about the cost” Ryan said with a smile after having shown Carlos and Kayali their small apartments, just across the hall from each other. “If you ever need anything, just let me know.” Ryan said with a smile, nodding to the pair and accepting their thanks before heading off and leading Steve away with him.

“I’m going to unpack and then sleep. Goodnight Kayali.” Carlos said, giving a half-wave and retreating into his apartment.

“Goodnight Ramirez.” Kayali muttered, barely heard by Carlos.

Carlos weaved his way past his small living room and into his bedroom, stripping quickly and pulling on a sleep shirt before flopping onto his bed, already made up with possibly the finest sheets he had ever felt. 

“I made it. I’m here.” Carlos sighed happily, drifting off to sleep with a smile and lingering eagerness to get to work.


	2. Pre-Cecil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos took to Rapture like a duck to water, making friends with his co-workers easily and thriving in an environment where all it took was a handful of cash and a promise to look out for someone’s kid to get a new test subject to cut apart and play around with. The builders, now squashed into Pauper’s Drop, were always eager for extra cash even if it meant waving their little girls and wives goodbye and sacrificing their body to the noble pursuit of Science.
> 
> \--  
> We get some details of Carlos' work, a Glow Cloud and an attractive writer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first off, super duper thanks to daizy-may on tumblr for reading this over and catching some mistakes I missed.  
> Next up, chapter warnings~  
> This is really where it starts to get dark, but not as dark as it will be.  
> There's kind of in-depth talk of human experimentation, especially on children (little girls), talk of dissecting people, on-screen character death (and dismissal of it as 'not important').  
> There is also smut at the end of the chapter.  
> So y'know. Enjoy that ;)  
> I will be updating the tags in a hot second to reflect these story additions, as well as increasing the rating to E (for the smut haha)  
> Enjoy the chapter and hey,  
> Thanks.

Carlos took to Rapture like a duck to water, making friends with his co-workers easily and thriving in an environment where all it took was a handful of cash and a promise to look out for someone’s kid to get a new test subject to cut apart and play around with. The builders, now squashed into Pauper’s Drop, were always eager for extra cash even if it meant waving their little girls and wives goodbye and sacrificing their body to the noble pursuit of Science. 

What was especially handy, Carlos had found, was the discovery of ADAM, a substance that made fundamental chemical changes to the human body to make it stronger, tougher, more resilient and all around  _ better _ . ADAM had been discovered in a small sea slug, mere months before Carlos and Kayali had arrived, and was already in the early stages of being tested for marketing, which meant as long as Carlos reported his results back to Doctor Brigid Tenenbaum and Frank Fontaine, he got a practically unlimited supply of the rich red liquid, to do with as he wanted.  

Between ADAM and the eagerness of ex-builders for cash, Carlos’ Frankenstein project was completed in a matter of months. He was expecting it to take at least a year, if not more, but then again ADAM made the grafting of body parts and the reanimation of a body much,  _ much _ easier. He’d unveiled it after a long night in the lab, when his co-workers were yawning and dragging their feet despite their enthusiasm for their own projects. He’d called for champagne as he revealed it, the hulking body containing sections of no less than 7 different builders, and a conglomeration of their brains, one of Carlos’ favourite parts of the project, that would serve as extra security for the lab. There were cheers and celebrations and an attempt to resume working before they all realised that it just wasn’t going to happen so they shuffled off to their respective apartments and slept like the dead.

Unbeknownst to him, Carlos’ reports on the use of ADAM to create a Frankensteinian being had raised eyebrows at Fontaine Futuristics, in a good way. They started paying attention to the scientist, taking notes of their own as he bustled around his lab, gathering materials and making plans for a new project.

Carlos’ second project was more fiddly, taking more parts and more time. It started with the development of what was essentially a portable steamer, and the time it took to get this element alone functional nearly made Carlos abandon the project entirely. Instead he took a break, setting aside a handful of months to be a general helping hand around the lab for the other scientists, especially for Rochelle, who was working on making actual Chimaeras through the splicing of animal genes, while he reworked his ideas in the back of his head, trying to find a way to make it all work.

The secret eyes on Carlos wavered during this time, switching focus to some of the other scientists sharing his lab, but they always returned to Carlos, especially after Fontaine Futuristics had found a way to develop Plasmids from ADAM and started providing the scientists with samples, following the same testing procedures as they had for ADAM in its early stages.

Carlos was given advance trials of each of the Plasmids Fontaine was planning to sell, as well as some vials of EVE, the by-product of ADAM that powered Plasmids. A few of the Plasmids immediately caught Carlos’ eye as being potentially useful to his project. 

Carlos was not the first person to experiment with mixing Plasmids, not by a long shot, but the way he used the mixed Plasmids was new, catching the attention of Doctor Yi Suchong, Fontaine’s pet scientist and developer of the Plasmids. Carlos spent many long nights in the lab, mixing various Plasmids and taking notes on the results by injecting the mixtures into not-so-willing volunteers. It was not uncommon to hear muted screams and quiet laughter coming from that section of the Medical Pavilion in the early hours of the morning, or just echoing ragged breathing and thoughtful hums. 

Eventually Carlos worked it out, finding the perfect mix of a more experimental Plasmid, Sanctuary, a more refined Plasmid, Winter Blast, and pure unrefined ADAM. On the surface Sanctuary was a Plasmid that provided the user with a protective bubble that surrounded them, and moved when they moved while Winter Blast allowed the user to create a blast of icy air that could be very damaging to anyone nearby. The combination of the Plasmids made a bubble of chilled air, the ADAM in the mixture acting as a catalyst with the Plasmids to continuously cool and contain the air in the cloud. A little tweaking of the mixture produced several different results. More Sanctuary made a rounder, smaller and wispier cloud while more Winter Blast made a denser, larger and more sprawling cloud. The amount of ADAM didn’t really make a difference to anything, other than the longevity of the initial cloud, but experimentation had proven that providing the cloud with a supply of either ADAM or EVE could make it last longer, with EVE making the cloud last for up to a day longer than the equivalent amount of ADAM. Upon this realisation, Carlos had worked with the hypodermics EVE came in, eventually repurposing an empty Plasmid bottle to make a glorified spray bottle, which he could use to spritz the cloud with EVE as needed. 

The best part about the cloud to Carlos was the way it didn’t seem to be impacted by the external climate conditions. The cloud existed when the lab was at its most humid, when Rochelle was running a heat-sensitive gene splicing test, and when it was at its driest, for one of Dave’s control tests for his prototype proton ray, and when they had to evacuate the lab because of a crack in the glass that started leaking ocean water in, when the engineers had fixed the glass and the scientists were allowed back in to salvage what they could, the cloud was still floating around.

Once the Plasmid mix was perfected every iteration of the cloud was a consistent size and density, though the shape and colour varied. The shape changed because of various air currents moving through the lab but the colour, which shifted from red to blue while hitting every colour in between, seemed to be a result of the ADAM and EVE mixing inside the cloud. It was possible to make the cloud disappear, via the application of the Incinerate Plasmid, an outcome Carlos discovered when his co-workers, who had grown annoyed at the number of lightly glowing clouds that were filling the lab from Carlos’ tests, decided to burn the little clouds away. 

The next step, now that Carlos had the cloud itself made, was to create sentience in it. 

“See the thing is, I thought I could make it function like a brain.” Carlos said to Kayali one night over dinner. “But the structure of the cloud is all wrong, and even if it was I’d need to start all over with the Plasmid formula to add Electro Bolt in.”

Kayali hummed softly, chewing a mouthful and taking a sip of wine, young and bitter from the vines in Arcadia, before responding. “Maybe you should try attaching it to a brain, see how that affects things. You know there’s no shortage of test subjects. Otherwise you could always try supplying it with ADAM directly, not through EVE.”

Carlos hummed, long and low, stroking his chin as he thought. “That brain one could work, I’ve already tried the ADAM, made it too unstable. I wonder if there’s a way to… hmm.” Carlos trailed off, pulling a notebook out of the lab coat he was still wearing and scribbling down a series of notes. “I’ll have to try that tomorrow. Fancy a trip to Pauper’s first thing?” He offered, scooping up a mouthful of assorted vegetables and chewing it unintentionally loudly.

Kayali sighed and looked out across the restaurant. “No, unfortunately I have a meeting first thing. With Fontaine.”

Carlos made a noise of inquiry, waving for Kayali to explain further.

“I think he wants to buy our labs. Maybe take some people to work on the Gatherer project.” She said, laying her cutlery down neatly and sipping at her wine. “It would be good, he’d let you continue all your work and would still pay you for it.” She continued, sighing and setting her glass down. “I need you to tell me, make sure my head’s on straight. Would it be worth it?”

Carlos paused and thought about it, really  _ thought, _ knowing Kayali wouldn’t appreciate a half-thought through answer. “It could be beneficial. We could have more access to ADAM and Plasmids, more  _ direct _ access to them, and… other things.” Carlos dropped his voice, leaning in and whispering as he continued. “You know Rochelle’s always looking for new samples and what better way to get them than through Fontaine’s smuggling ring? And besides,” Carlos said, leaning back again and raising his voice. “It could put us in a powerful position when it comes to ADAM tests. Being under Fontaine’s control will give us more, and we could sell off the excess for a tidy profit.”

Kayali nodded and hummed in agreement. “Especially with the way they’re desperately trying to get the Gatherer project off the ground and running. Being with Fontaine could lead to us being much better off if the Gatherers don’t work.”

“Exactly!” Carlos exclaimed, banging his hand against the table lightly and making their cutlery rattle. “And what would the downsides be? Ryan would be mad? So what? We’d have Fontaine’s protection. You know he’s practically got as much power as Ryan these days.”

Kayali gave a small smile and nodded again. “If he offers to buy us tomorrow I’ll allow him. Thank you, Ramirez.”

Carlos grinned and gulped down the last of his wine, shuddering a little at its bitterness. “I’ll make sure to get some champagne to celebrate tomorrow night.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself Ramirez.” Kayali warned, stopping a passing waiter and asking for the check. “Just make sure you get your subjects early tomorrow, I’d like you back before the meeting’s over.”

Carlos stood from his chair, tucking it under the table as Kayali paid for their meal. “I can manage that. Probably. I’ll do my best to.”

“Do better than your best, Ramirez.” Kayali said, turning her back and holding her arms out so Carlos could help her into her coat.

“I’ll do better than my best then.” Carlos agreed, offering his arm and leading Kayali out of the restaurant and towards the Bathysphere station.

“Good.” Kayali nodded.

oOo

The next morning had Carlos waking up early, before the general lights of Rapture had turned on to indicate ‘morning’, and catching a Bathysphere to Pauper’s Drop to try and track down some new test subjects to help in his cloud project. 

He went from crowded dorm to crowded dorm, standing on a stool in his lab coat with his clipboard and pen in hand and giving the same speech over and over.

“My name is Doctor Ramirez and I’m looking for some test subjects for my latest project.” Carlos said, speaking loudly over the creaking of beds and the disappointed noises of workers who had been hoping for more. “I can pay you fifty Ryan Dollars for your cooperation.” Carlos finished and waited five minutes for anyone to approach him before moving onto the next dorm and repeating the procedure. 

By the time Carlos’ watch read 9 am, the time Kayali had wanted him heading back to the Medical Pavilion, he had 5 new test subjects, all trailing along behind him, some of them having said goodbye to families and others with no one to say goodbye to. As they stood in the Bathysphere, the volunteers in various states of undress and sleepwear, Carlos took notes on all of them, body height, estimated weight, and which order he’d trial them in. They were halfway back, passing through the Bathysphere Interchange and onto the Medical Pavilion line, before any of them spoke up.

“What exactly are you going to do to us?” Carlos startled out of his note taking, whirling around to face the young brunette who had spoken.

“What am I going to do? Well,” Carlos paused, flicking back a page in his notes and clearing his throat. “I’m mainly interested in your brain, so I’ll start by cracking open your skull and removing it, then depending on which stage of the experiment you are I’ll either stimulate your brain with the controlled application of the Electro Bolt Plasmid or a slowly increasing amount of ADAM and EVE mixture.” Carlos explained, jolting slightly as the Bathysphere’s horizontal movement halted to push them up into the Medical Pavilion Bathysphere station. “This is all going towards the purpose of making a sentient cloud. I already have the cloud part, a very clever mix of a prototype Plasmid and Winter Blast, but now you five will be helping me with the sentience part!” Carlos finished, bouncing on his heels as the Bathysphere hissed open and he led the volunteers out and into an elevator, ignoring the way they were shifting uneasily. “Of course,” Carlos added, pressing the down button and humming softly, “After your brain is removed, possibly even before then, you won’t be around for anything, but hey maybe if this all works maybe one of  _ you _ will end up in my little cloud!” 

The elevator dinged and Carlos led his volunteers out, leading them down the relevant hallways until he arrived at the lab he shared with Rochelle, Dave and, currently, a small group of teens and still-learning scientists who had been brought to Rapture by their teachers to act as interns.

“I’ve got a group of five subjects to be picked apart. I need their brains but the rest is free game so long as you help me take them apart!” Carlos called as he led the volunteers towards the main dissection tables. 

“I’ll take hearts and lungs!” Rochelle called, bouncing over with an already bloodied scalpel in hand.

“I don’t need anything but I’ll help you just to take a break from my work.” Dave offered, stepping over to examine the subjects.

“Hit a wall with it?” Carlos asked, waving for the subjects to climb onto the dissection tables.

“A little bit, yeah.” Dave sighed, selecting a series of knives from one of the tool tables.

Carlos gave a dry chuckle and nodded understandingly, selecting a scalpel of his own to use. “I’ve got to go talk to Kayali briefly, but feel free to get started without me, maybe get the interns to start the other three you can’t do?” Carlos said, idly twirling his scalpel in his fingers and leaving the lab after getting confirming nods from both Dave and Rochelle. 

Carlos left the lab and climbed the half set of stairs up to Kayali’s office, where she could look down over the lab’s occupants should she feel the need to check up on their progress. Carlos rapped on the door gently and, upon receiving a noise of confirmation, pushed the door open to join the little meeting. In front of Kayali’s desk was the burly-looking Frank Fontaine, a small smirk playing around his lips as he turned to face the newcomer, and Doctor Suchong, his mouth fixed in a frown as he adjusted his glasses.

“Ramirez, you’re late. I asked you to be back by 9.” Kayali said, waving Carlos around to a seat beside her. 

“Sorry, the Bathysphere was delayed leaving Pauper’s. You know how it is.” Carlos explained, giving a wry smile to Fontaine and Suchong as he offered them a hand to shake. “Carlos Ramirez, pleasure to meet the both of you. I admire your work greatly.” He said, shaking their hands, and massaging his own hand after Fontaine’s firm grip as he took his seat.

“The pleasure is all mine, I assure you.” Fontaine said, settling into his seat again with a laidback smile. “Doctor Kayali here has just been telling me about your work. Especially the way you’ve been using my plasmids.”

Carlos gave a side-glance to Kayali, wondering exactly what she had said and, as such, how much he should say in turn. 

“Yes, well. The Plasmids are a wonderful resource. My current project would be much more difficult without them, and my previous one would have taken almost a year without ADAM.” Carlos said honestly, rearranging his lab coat around his seat and frowning slightly as Suchong sniffed dismissively and stood to look out the window over the lab.

“Your previous project, I presume you mean that… creature? Person? What exactly do you call it, by the way?” Fontaine said, waving vaguely out the door to where Carlos’ Frankenstein creature was pacing the corridor. 

“Creature works. Or Golem at a stretch.” Carlos shrugged, looking away from Suchong’s unimpressed form to meet Fontaine’s gaze. “But yes, it was what I was doing before my cloud project. ADAM made the grafting process a lot easier, as well as the reanimation.”

Fontaine nodded and hummed thoughtfully, looking over his shoulder at Suchong and raising a brow.

“What are your thoughts, Doctor?” He asked, turning his chair slightly to put the focus on the doctor.

“He has skill. That I won’t deny.” Suchong said, folding his arms across his chest. “And he definitely seems to be lacking the moral compass that would disrupt our work.” Fontaine let out a low chuckle at that.

“How would you feel about… altering… children, Doctor Ramirez?” Fontaine asked, twisting in his chair to fix Carlos with his gaze again.

“Depends in what way. Internal things are tougher with children, their organs are so small, and it would depend on the age. Anyone younger than maybe 5 is generally too much trouble to be worth it.” Carlos said, shifting under Fontaine’s intense gaze and clearing his throat.

“And you clearly have no problems working on full grown men.” Fontaine added, stroking his chin.

Suchong nodded quietly in his corner and stepped forward to whisper in Fontaine’s ear before slipping out of the office as Carlos’ eyes followed him keenly.

“Well, Doctor Ramirez. It seems like you’d be a good fit for the project. The only trouble is where exactly, but don’t worry, we’ll work all of that out.” Fontaine said, standing and brushing some imaginary dust off his trousers. 

“Can I have time to finish my current project? Before you put me on the Gatherers project, that is. I presume this is about the Gatherers project?” Carlos asked rapidly, chewing on his lip as he finished. 

Fontaine gave a bright chuckle, clearly a little taken aback by Carlos’ series of questions. “Of course! To all of those! The project won’t be fully starting for another month or so, well the main body of the project. The early stages are already complete. Anyway,” Fontaine waved a dismissive hand, “we’ll contact you when it’s time. Pleasure talking with you.” Fontaine took Kayali’s hand and brushed his lips against her knuckles before shaking Carlos’ hand. “Take care.” He called back as he left the office, leaving Carlos and Kayali to exchange looks.

“So he bought our labs?” Carlos asked, running a hand through his hair.

“Not quite. He just offered us extra funding if we could send someone to work more-or-less full time on the Gatherer project.” Kayali answered, sliding back into her chair and picking up a pen to write down the key points of the meeting.

“Interesting.” Carlos hummed, pacing out from behind Kayali’s desk.

“Yes. Indeed.” Kayali said softly, still scribbling away in her notebook.

“Well. I have work to get back to. These men aren’t going to dissect themselves.” Carlos said, realising with a start he was still holding his scalpel.

“Of course, go ahead.” Kayali said, dismissing Carlos back to the lab where he threw himself fully into dissecting the volunteers from Pauper’s Drop.

For the next week, Carlos basically lived in the lab. He slept on one of the dissection tables using his lab coat as a blanket and spent his every waking moment doing calculations and mixing plasmids with the hope that he’d find the perfect combination. He’d tried Electro Bolt to at least reactivate the brain but had accidentally used too much and just ended up with a fried and unusable brain instead, which got discarded immediately. 

His next test had been ADAM and a little bit of EVE, which had flooded the brain with activity and essentially short circuited it, as well as the cloud Carlos had connected it to when he had thought it would work. Another mix of Sanctuary and Winter Blast later and Carlos had his cloud back, but was still no closer to making it fully sentient. He suspected it was already a little bit sentient as it had a habit of following him or one of the other scientists around the lab as they worked, but the amount of sentience that it took to move around was not enough for Carlos. He wanted full sentience.

In the second week since Fontaine’s visit, a new Plasmid, called Telekinesis, arrived at the lab for testing. Rochelle took almost all of the first load, citing an experiment about a cat and making it float as her reason for dibs, but Carlos managed to salvage a single bottle of it for his own use. 

In its pure form, Telekinesis was not helpful for Carlos. It was a Plasmid designed to allow the user to move things without touching them, lifting, pulling and pushing items. But Carlos theorised that he could manipulate the Plasmid slightly and allow a more metaphorical pushing and pulling that, hopefully, would allow the cloud to reach out to an activated brain on its own.

The day of the Telekinesis delivery, Kayali forced Carlos out of the lab to shower and change, telling him he was disgusting and running the risk of contaminating  _ everyone’s _ work in the lab, which Carlos couldn’t argue against. As his supervisor marched him through Olympus Heights, Carlos babbled on about his theories on manipulating Telekinesis and maybe, just maybe, being able to achieve the sentience he wanted in his cloud. Kayali listened patiently, nodding along as Carlos talked and asking further questions like how would he manipulate the Plasmid and did he know how to activate a brain yet? Carlos couldn’t answer all of Kayali’s questions, but he did promise to think on them and work them out ASAP. 

Carlos showered quickly, scrubbing at his body with too-hot water and dragging his fingers through his greasy unkempt hair, rubbing himself down with the sea-salt based soap, one of the most common forms of soap in Rapture, and clambering out of his shower to dry off and dress hurriedly as he thought of an idea to make the brain work.

On the way back to the lab, Kayali told Carlos that Fontaine was having a dinner party in the next week and that they were both invited to mingle. Carlos huffed and shrugged, insisting that he wouldn’t be good company because he’d rather be in his lab working.

“You will go and you will mingle, at least with Suchong and Tenenbaum. They are the Gatherer project supervisors and you will have to be friendly with them.” Kayali said, gritting her teeth as they rode in the Bathysphere to the Medical Pavilion.

“Fine. Fine, I’ll go.” Carlos conceded, fisting his hands in his lab coat pockets as they left the Bathysphere and got into the elevator going down to the lab.

“Good.” Kayali said, sighing as they climbed out of the elevator and she ascended to her office.

Carlos pouted as he passed his Frankenstein guard and entered the lab, ignoring the bustle of the others and secluding himself in his corner with his chalkboards filled with formulae and brains. It wasn’t until Carlos had a scalpel pressed to his throat that he realised anything was wrong, but he reacted quickly, palming a scalpel from his bench space and driving it back into his attacker’s stomach.

Carlos was released with a muted groan from his attacker and turned to find one of their interns crumpling to the floor, a hand pressed to the side of their stomach where a bright spot of blood was blooming over their lab coat.

“Oh.” Carlos hummed softly, glancing around the rest of the lab and realising that what he had presumed to be general bustle was actually Dave defending himself and Rochelle slowly collapsing against the body freezers lining the wall.

The intern at his feet gave a low gurgle and reached up towards Carlos with a bloodied hand, grabbing his trousers only to be kicked off as Carlos kneeled to drive his scalpel into the intern’s throat and speed up their death.

As he finished, Carlos heard a loud crash from Dave’s side of the room and looked up to see Dave standing victorious over the intern that had been attacking him, now crumpled on the floor with a severe dent in the side of their head.

“Eventful afternoon?” Carlos asked, smiling as Dave started laughing.

“You could say that.” Dave said, gasping slightly and rubbing at his throat. “Shame about Rochelle though.”

Carlos hummed, the low ache of grief creeping up on him only to be shrugged off by the scientist. “It is indeed. Where’s the other intern?”

“Under the bench I think?” Dave said, spinning on the spot to look. “One of Rochelle’s creatures got to her.”

Carlos nodded, wiping his bloody hand off on his lab coat. “Good good. Less clean up for us.” Carlos sighed and ran his still blood-streaked hand through his hair. “Think we can at least salvage their brains?” He asked as he heaved the body of the intern who’d attacked him into his arms.

“Probably. I can fill you in on the events while we do that.” Dave offered, picking up his own body and laying it out on the dissection table beside Carlos’.

Dave talked as they worked, the pair ignoring the sounds of something eating in Rochelle’s bench space as they carefully gutted the interns and set all their internal organs aside for repurposing. The attack had started with Rochelle’s intern and a clearly incredibly lethal contact poison that had Rochelle collapsing quickly while her latest project, a cat, octopus and shark hybrid that floated, thanks to Telekinesis, jumped to her defence. Then Dave’s intern had tried to strangle him and Carlos knew the rest.

“We’ll have to start carrying knives all the time if we get more interns.” Carlos sighed, carefully pulling the brain out of his intern and setting it aside. 

“Well we’re going to need more interns. It was so useful having them around.” Dave added, extracting his own intern’s brain and starting to wheel the dissection table around to the incinerator.

“That’s true.” Carlos sighed, following Dave with his table and waiting for the incinerator to start up. As they waited a creature came floating around the corner, four-legged and looking more-or-less like a cat except for the three tentacle-like tails, the double row of fangs in his mouth that showed as it yawned and the grey-blue colour of its fur. It’s muzzle and front paws were covered in blood, clearing a little when it licked its lips, rumbling deep in its chest as it floated over with small paw movements to brush against Carlos’ side.

“That must be Rochelle’s creature.” Dave said, sliding the top tray of his dissection table into the incinerator as he watched Carlos stroke the Chimaera behind its ears.

“Did she give it a name?” Carlos asked, jumping slightly as it yowled, a sound that shuddered down Carlos’ spine like nails down a chalkboard.

“I don’t know. If she did it’d be in her notes.” Dave said, tipping the tray up to slide the ash off it and pulling it out of the incinerator. “Go take a look, I’ll take care of this.” 

“Thanks Dave.” Carlos said, passing his table into Dave’s hand and heading over to Rochelle’s bench space to search through her notes, the Chimaera following behind him, making the earlier rumbling noise again.

It didn’t take long for Carlos to find the relevant page of notes, a neatly printed sheet of information about the Chimaera including the percentage makeup of its (his, turns out) DNA and his name, Khoshekh.

“Khoshekh, huh?” Carlos hummed, smiling to himself as the technically-a-cat (70% of Khoshekh’s DNA came from a cat) responded to his name with a soft clicking noise. “I guess I’ll take care of you from now on.” Carlos sighed softly, he hadn’t really been looking for a pet but as he looked at Khoshekh’s mostly-feline face he found he didn’t want to leave the Chimaera alone.

Carlos scanned the information sheet on Khoshekh as he made his way back around to where Dave was finishing up with the incinerator, pushing the empty dissection tables back to their spots and whistling tunelessly as he heaved the next body onto one of the tables.

“So his name’s Khoshekh.” Carlos said, laying the sheet of paper on his bench and scratching Khoshekh under the chin as he went to pick up Rochelle’s body. “And he’ll eat all the body bits we don’t need, so if we bag them when they’re done I’ll just take him and them home with me tonight.” Carlos grunted softly as he picked up Rochelle’s body and carried it over to the dissection table.

“Huh. You sure?” Dave asked, tearing the last intern’s clothes away to cut into their chest.

“Yeah, my apartment’s got plenty of room, and I’ll make sure to speak to Fontaine or someone about taking their off cuts off their hands for him.” Carlos hummed softly, picking up the clippers to shear Rochelle’s hair off to allow access to her skull. 

They finished their dissections and clean up in quiet, just the muted sounds of whale song coming through the window and the tearing of skin and muscle as they worked away. Dave yawned as they finished up, bagging the general organs while the brains were all carefully set aside in jars of preserving fluid for Carlos to work with, before slumping over and starting to slouch towards the door. 

“What a wasted afternoon. I was hoping to get some work done.” Dave sighed, holding the door for Carlos as he collected one of the organ bags, a notebook, and gently tugged a napping Khoshekh down into his arms.

“Yeah. Oh well. Tomorrow should be more productive. At least I wrote my theory down, otherwise I would have forgotten it by now.” Carlos sighed, pressing the elevator button and scratching Khoshekh’s side as the cat rolled over and started purring lowly.

“What’s your latest theory?” Dave asked as they climbed into the Bathysphere that would take them towards Rapture Central.

“Well so far I’ve been working with just one brain at a time and you know how none of those have worked. It occurred to me that I could run wires between two or more brains and that would probably help it work.” Carlos said, sneezing suddenly as Khoshekh flicked one of his tails under Carlos’ nose.

“That sounds promising. Just going to try with ADAM and EVE again?” Dave asked, pushing the Bathysphere door open and leading the way towards the Olympus Heights line. 

“Yeah. Electro Bolt’s a little bit too much of a risk.” Carlos nodded, shifting Khoshekh in his arms as the Chimaera stirred. “I also need to work out how much Telekinesis to use.”

“Sounds like you’ll have a busy day tomorrow.” Dave chuckled, stepping out of the way as the Bathysphere door started to close. “Either way, see you in the-” He called, the end of his sentence being cut off by the door. Carlos nodded and waved as the Bathysphere started being lowered into the water and sent towards his apartment building.

“Just you and me now Khoshekh.” Carlos hummed as the Chimaera yawned and blinked up at him. “I’ll find some water and food dishes for you. And I’ve got plenty of spare pillows around for you to sleep on.” Carlos spoke softly, scratching just above Khoshekh’s tails as he spoke. “And tomorrow you’ll get the whole place to yourself. I’ll be at work all day.” Carlos continued, stepping out of the Bathysphere and weaving through the small crowd waiting on the Bathysphere.

Carlos fumbled a little when he got to his door, struggling to hold both Khoshekh and get his key from his pocket, but he managed it and got the door open, stepping inside and setting Khoshekh on the floor, which the cat immediately used to spring into the air to investigate every corner of the small apartment.

While Khoshekh explored, Carlos dug out a small, dusty bowl, and a matching plate which had come with the apartment and went mostly unused, with Carlos eating out most nights, when he even remembered to eat. The dishes were rinsed and set on the floor, one with a chunk of liver on it and the other half-full of water. 

Carlos straightened and yawned, putting the other organs into the barely-used fridge and startling as Khoshekh mewled in the other room, a noise like if a bell ring had bass notes in it, and came scampering through the air to the plate of food.

“Good boy,” Carlos said softly, crouching down to stroke along Khoshekh’s spine and tails before straightening again and stretching. Carlos shuffled down the short hall to his bedroom, discarding his lab coat along the way, his shirt and pants following suit as he made his way into the ensuite to shower off the day’s blood before bed.

Carlos dressed into his pajamas and flopped into bed, wriggling until he was comfortably tucked under the covers and curled around his pillow slightly. Just as Carlos was drifting off, a warm weight settled along his side, triplet tails flicking against Carlos’ hip as Khoshekh laid over his body and started purring.

“G’night Khoshekh.” Carlos murmured sleepily, smiling as Khoshekh gave a soft bass mewl in response, and finally drifted off.

oOo

The next few days passed in a promising blur, with Carlos having found a way to make the brains more stable as he injected them with ADAM and EVE, having connected three of them in a triangle so, combined, they had enough neurons and synapses to bear the load and negate the possibility of the previous overloaded result. The next step was to add a little Telekinesis to the mix, both of ADAM and EVE into the brains and Sanctuary and Winter Blast into the cloud. Carlos spent many frustrated nights scribbling ratios and measurements while chewing practically through his lip, leaving himself with a ragged mess of tender skin inside his mouth by the time he had the perfect ratio. That night Carlos slept happily and easily, his tension eased now he knew how to make it all work, and with the knowledge his lip would be healed come morning, thanks to the tiny smear of ADAM he’d spread across the abused skin. 

Carlos woke to Khoshekh yowling at the door and a sharp rapping that had him scrambling from bed, pulling on a blood-stained lab coat on his way, to answer the door. Carlos scooped his curious cat into his arms, tutting at Khoshekh as he pawed at the arm holding him, and opened the door to Kayali, fully dressed and coiffed and looking ready to make Carlos feel ashamed for not being the same yet. 

“Doctor Ramirez, how on Earth are you not awake yet? You have work to be doing and, do not forget, that we are to attend Fontaine’s party tonight.” Kayali said, pushing her way into Carlos’ apartment and sniffing in disdain at the mess it was from having a cat run around it unsupervised all day long. 

“Forgive me, not all of us wake up at the crack of dawn.” Carlos said wryly, closing the door and holding Khoshekh out, making sure the Chimaera was ready to float before releasing him.

“Well you’d best get dressed and ready to work, you don’t get a day off just because I need you to make a good impression tonight.” Kayali sighed, seating herself delicately on the edge of Carlos’ sofa as Khoshekh floated around her, investigating the intruder into his space.

“I will, I will.” Carlos dismissed, padding into the kitchen to put the kettle on and put some breakfast out for Khoshekh.

“Good.” Kayali said, reaching out and offering a hand for Khoshekh to sniff at and rub against, which he promptly fled from. “I want you on your best behaviour tonight,” Kayali added as Carlos brought over a tea tray and set it on the coffee table, pouring tea into both teacups. “But also I want you on alert. After what happened with Rochelle… Well, let’s just say it won’t be beneficial to lose you next. We don’t know who else will be at the party tonight.”

Carlos nodded and sipped at his tea. “I’ll find a way to make sure I’m armed. Only to be used in self defence, of course.” He said, already making plans for a sheath of some kind in his coat sleeve.

Kayali nodded sharply and sipped at her own tea, giving a soft sigh as she drank. “This is good tea, better than we normally get. Where’s it from?” She asked, taking another deep sip.

“I’m uh, not exactly sure.” Carlos admitted, dragging a hand through his bedhead. “It might even be from the surface, that I brought down when we arrived.”

“Of course.” Kayali said, a soft note of fondness in her voice. “Well, I should leave you to get dressed and prepared, but don’t take too long. I will not be impressed if I have to come here to fetch you again.”

Carlos rolled his eyes as Kayali finished her tea and stood, brushing her skirt off and making her way to the door. “Yes, Doctor Kayali.” He said, standing and stepping over to open the door for Kayali, just barely blocking Khoshekh as the cat made a break for the door. “I’ll be there soon.”

Kayali nodded and walked away down the hall, leaving Carlos to pick up and chastise Khoshekh for trying to get out.

“If you got out there someone might hurt you, you know.” Carlos murmured, playing with Khoshekh’s paws as he carried the cat with him to the bathroom. “And if someone hurt you I’d get sad and lonely again. Not that I was sad before, but I was certainly lonely.” Carlos continued, smiling as Khoshekh mewled and reached to be set down. “Okay, okay. Go eat your breakfast.”

Showered and dressed, Carlos left for the lab, fingers itching for a pen and paper to draw his diagrams and make sure that they would be physically possible without him accidentally stabbing himself during the night. 

He arrived at the lab in record time, the Bathyspheres all running on time for once and no delays for last-second passengers, and started drawing out his ideas, always tucking them away when one of the new interns was nearby. It wouldn’t do to have them aware of the precautions he was taking, if they knew that could use that to their advantage later.

Carlos made sure to wander over to his brains occasionally, making it look like he was trying to solve a problem with the system even while he muttered about lengths and hemlines and pockets around the scalpel he was holding between his teeth. Around lunch time, one of the interns, the one assigned to Carlos he guessed, cleared their throat behind him, startling the scientist into a defence response, whirling around with his scalpel out and teeth bared in a growl before he realised who was disrupting him.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you startled me, sorry.” Carlos blurted, straightening himself out and putting the scalpel on the bench behind him, still in view of the intern and easy reach of Carlos. “What can I help you with?” He asked, running a lightly trembling hand through his hair and tucking his other hand into his pocket.

“I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help you sir?” The intern asked, voice shaking as they shuffled backwards a step. “But I can leave you alone if you’d like.” They added meekly.

“I was actually about to head home, I have things to take care of before tonight. You should probably just head home too, unless Dave needs an extra pair of hands.” Carlos sighed, gathering the notebook he’d been writing in all day and subtly tucking a handful of scalpels into his lab coat pocket.

The rest of the day, and evening, was spent making adjustments to Carlos’ least blood-stained lab coat, around Khoshekh’s ‘helping hands’. The cat was just making Carlos’ job more difficult, batting scraps of fabric around and chasing bobbins of thread when Carlos dropped them, or whining for Carlos’ attention when the scientist was busy sewing or trying to re-thread his needle.

Eventually Carlos just shrugged out of his lab coat and threw it into the corner, where Khoshekh pounced after it and gleefully ripped into the tough fabric, purring loud enough to make the table lamps rattle in place.

It took Carlos far too long, but after hours of measuring, sewing, testing and starting over, he finally had an end result he was satisfied with. With the alterations complete, Carlos carefully ironed the lab coat and hung it in his closet until it was time to go and, after a glance at the clock, took some time to draw a bath and soak, letting the warm water ease the tension in his shoulders. As Carlos sat in the water and let the soft scent of the bubbles wash over him, he found himself almost slipping into sleep, only to get jolted awake suddenly by Khoshekh leaping into the bathwater with a joyful, ringing noise and starting to splash around. Taking that as his cue to get out, Carlos retreated from the warm water with a yawn and draped a soft towel around his body as he made his way to his wardrobe to pick out an outfit for the evening, leaving his purring cat to enjoy the last of the warmth in the bathwater.

Carlos chose a light blue shirt, dark slacks and a mid-grey pair of suspenders to pull it all together, and was halfway into his undershirt when there was a rap on the door. Carlos shuffled off to answer it, idly wondering who could be calling on him at this time of night as he tucked his undershirt into his boxers. The door opened to reveal Kayali, dressed in her evening finest and gaping at Carlo’s state of undress.

“Ramirez!” She exclaimed, pushing inside and shutting the door forcefully behind her. “We are supposed to be halfway to Fontaine Futuristics by now!” She continued, fixing Carlos with a glare. “What in the name of God are you doing? Why are you not dressed?!”

“I was trying to-”

“Don’t care. Just get dressed Ramirez!” Kayali cut Carlos off and waved him towards his bedroom.

“Okay, but at least let me talk while I dress?” Carlos asked, letting himself be herded into his room and have the door shut in front of him. “See,” Carlos called through the door, grabbing his slacks and tugging them on slowly, “I was trying to make like a sheath in my coat sleeve, for protection you know?” Carlos continued, putting a hand out to steady himself against the wall as he tried to get his second leg into his pants. “And it took me a while to firstly work out how to stitch it in in a discrete way.” Carlos could hear Kayali sighing and tapping her foot outside his door as he spoke, fastening his pants and shrugging into his shirt. “And then I tried a few on my other coats, not my best one of course, but I found they were too tight or too loose or too grippy.” Carlos babbled, fastening his shirt buttons and then having to undo them and start over when he got them out of line. “But I got it to work and then I added a little snap fastener, modified to be silent.” Carlos pulled the door open, in the final stages of adjusting his suspenders and cufflinks. “And thus I had a perfect, scalpel-sized pouch that could be easily accessed and pulled out.”

“Yes, yes, okay, well done Ramirez. Get your shoes on.” Kayali said, pushing Carlos into a seat and passing him his dress shoes, slightly scuffed from where he’d kicked his work boots off against them. “We are running late, and it is your fault and when we arrive you will apologise.” Kayali said, hovering and adjusting Carlos’ collar and eventually bustling off to find a comb for his hair. 

“I can dress myself Kayali!” Carlos called after her, muttering into his knee as he bent to tie his shoelace.

“You evidently cannot, have you even  _ seen _ the state of your hair? Here sit up let me fix it.” Kayali said, grabbing Carlos’ chin and tipping his head up as she dragged a comb through it, eventually tying it back with a thin ribbon, low against Carlos’ neck.

“Fine, fine, I’m ready to go now, let me go get my coat.” Carlos huffed, waving away Kayali’s fussing hands and leaving his chair to get his coat from his wardrobe, stepping into his bathroom on the way back to check on Khoshekh, who was still floating lazily in the bath. “Bye Khoshekh, don’t cause trouble while I’m out.” He said, blowing a kiss to the cat when he sat up and whined at Carlos.

“Okay, go, go I’ll get the door.” Kayali said as Carlos re-emerged into the living room, waving him through the front door just in time for Khoshekh to emerge, dripping and mewling like a kitten, from the bathroom.

“Oh, Khoshekh, poor baby, hold on let me put a towel out for him.” Carlos said, trying to push past Kayali to reach the whining Chimaera.

“No, go. Out. I’m sure he can find the towels. He’s smart, I know Rochelle wouldn’t make anything not smart.” Kayali argued, muscling Carlos out of the apartment and shutting the door firmly behind them.

Carlos huffed out a sigh but trailed after Kayali, straightening out the lapels of his lab coat and double checking he had a scalpel tucked away in its special pouch.

The Bathysphere ride was silent, just the soft music playing through the speakers filling the gap between the pair even as they changed at the interchange to one of the newest lines which led to Fontaine Futuristics.

They arrived without incident, Fontaine himself greeting the pair at the door and Carlos making an apology for delaying them. After that Kayali was whisked away by Fontaine to meet all the people she could, while Carlos was left to wander over to the bar, seeking a stiff drink to start the night before moving to the weaker Arcadia wines. At the bar Doctor Suchong found him, first to offer condolences on the loss of Rochelle, and by extension the interns, but once Carlos quietly accepted them the conversation moved to work, the Gatherer project. 

Carlos was thirsty for information about the infamous project. Almost everyone knew of it to an extent, with the Little Sister Orphanages being advertised near-constantly and the eerie little girls often seen being led through parts of Rapture, generally the parts that had been hit the worst with the ADAM addiction, and the subsequent Plasmid addictions.

“Why do you need the girls though? That’s the biggest part I don’t understand.” Carlos said, brow furrowed as he examined the last of his drink before meeting Suchong’s eyes again. 

“They are the hosts. The worms are parasites, they need a host to live off to make ADAM.” Suchong said, voice low and leaning into Carlos to talk. “Little girls work best. We tried boys, tried adults. For some reason, the girls work best.” 

Carlos nodded and gulped down the last of his drink, waving for a top up as Suchong continued. “Implanting the slug increases the ADAM yield by 30 times, but we can increase it further, we can  _ harvest _ ADAM from corpses.” Suchong laughed, low and deadly, “but we need  _ protectors. _ That’s where you come in. You will help with the protectors. The Big Daddy.”

“Harvest ADAM?” Carlos asked, humming softly. “Why do they need protectors?”

Suchong laughed, loud and borderline hysterically. “Two questions, the same answer to both.  _ Splicers.” _

Carlos gasped softly. He’d heard of the splicers, the people who got so addicted to ADAM, to Plasmids, the went crazy with the need for more, more,  _ more _ . The people who became disfigured in every way and started attacking people without reason just because they needed ADAM.

Suchong patted Carlos’ shoulder and grinned, nodding silently and standing from his stool. “But all that talk can wait. For now we should mingle.” Carlos nodded and watched absently as Suchong slipped into the crowd before he stood and followed slowly.

For the next few hours Carlos met so many people, learned so many names, that they all left his mind the second he left the conversation. He knew some people were ones he’d be working with soon enough, and others were just part of the Rapture elite, the big names and socialite wives of the revolutionary minds that made up the backbone of Rapture.

Eventually Carlos’ head was starting to spin, both from the amount of people and the overwhelming perfumes the women were wearing, and so he took a fresh glass of wine from a passing waiter and slunk away to a dark corner by the window, taking some time for solitude and the coolness of the glass as he leaned against it.

He sipped at his wine, still wincing at the amazing bitterness of an improperly aged ‘vintage’ that was all they could legally get here in Rapture, and leaned his head against the glass, looking out over schools of fish and glowing neon advertising the theaters and casinos just across the way and trying to ease away the headache that was creeping up on him.

After a few pleasurable minutes of silence and solitude away from the party Carlos heard a stuttered step, a soft gasp and a soft child-like humming and had to bite back a groan. Was it too hard to find a solid ten minutes of quiet here? 

Carlos turned slowly, teeth gritted as he fingered the little pocket in his coat sleeve, finding reassurance in the familiar weight of his scalpel.

“If you are not here to refill my glass-” Carlos’ voice, previously low and threatening, cut off abruptly as he took in the man standing in front of him, eyes widening and jaw dropping slightly open.

The man stood in front of Carlos, an inch or two taller than the scientist but not really tall enough to be considered ‘tall’, nor short enough to be called ‘short’, like Carlos was. His fingers, where they were pressed to his plush lips, were slim and long, and his arms leaned towards that descriptor too, but his body was more solid than that, looking to have a decent amount of padding, but still not appearing exactly ‘fat’. Nor ‘thin’, despite the slimming clothes the man was wearing, dark tones and thin pinstripes drawing attention to his overall physique. The man’s hair was tied back in a ribbon, much like Carlos’ was, but the length was just enough so that the ends of his hair curled outwards from its restraint. The man’s hand moved away from his lips and smoothed over his hair, allowing Carlos to fully take in his intense eyes, caught wide much like Carlos’ likely were, and sharp nose, as well as his cheekbones, becoming highlighted as a flush rose beneath them. As Carlos watched the man’s lower lip was drawn into his mouth, his perfect teeth worrying at the rosy flesh and filling Carlos with a desire to step forwards, to cup this man’s chin and bite into that flesh himself, taste the man’s groans as they poured down his throat. The man’s long fingers tugged gently at his ribbon, not pulling it out of place but merely adjusting it as Carlos took a shuffling step backwards, pressing himself against the window as his body trembled with his barely contained desire to tear the man apart, to discover how he could be a creature of contradictions, neither tall nor short, not thin or fat, neither sharp-boned, nor round-cheeked. Carlos took a juddering breath in, feeling his ribs shudder as he inhaled, and squeezed his eyes shut, willing his itching fingers to calm.

“Look Mr C.” A soft, multi-toned voice said, making Carlos jump and snap his eyes open again, darting them down to look at the little girl beside the man. Her dirty hair was pulled into pigtails and her bare feet were covered in as much dirt and grime as her ragged dress and pale face. “He’s an angel.” She said, rocking back and forth as Carlos’ skittering mind found the right words for her. A Little Sister.

“He certainly is, Josie.” The man said, voice a rich baritone that was almost lost to the background noise of the party.

“Who are, uh.” Carlos paused and cleared his throat, sipped at the wine he’d almost dropped and tucked a lock of his escaping and prematurely greying hair behind his ear, running a soothing finger over his hidden scalpel before he tried again. “Who are you? And why are you disrupting me?” He asked, trying to infuse his voice with authority and danger.

The man startled, almost as if he was in a trance, and tripped over himself trying to answer.

“Oh, sorry, gosh you’re just so- But I’m getting ahead of myself- Oh I’m making a mess of this- Shoot.” He babbled, going to run a hand over his hair again before going to tuck both hands into his pockets, only remembering about the little sister holding his hand at the last second as she made a pained sound of protest, prompting him to jump into another apology.

“I’m sorry, I’ve made a fool of myself.” The man said, pausing to straighten his jacket and clear his throat. “I’m Cecil Palmer. I’m a writer.” He said, holding out a hand for Carlos to shake and stepping towards the scientist, who discreetly popped his scalpel out of its pocket and fitting it into the palm of his hand.

“I’m Doctor Carlos Ramirez. I’m a… scientist.” Carlos said, not shaking Cecil’s hand and ignoring the writer’s childish pout. “Please, forgive me for not shaking your hand. Last week Rochelle, one of my co-workers, was killed via contact poison from one of our interns.” Cecil sighed and nodded, retracting his hand as Carlos slowly slid his scalpel back into its pocket.

“Of course, Doctor Ramirez. I understand completely.” Cecil said. “Oh, this is Josie.” He added, gently shaking the girl’s hand from his and placing it on her shoulder instead. “She was one of the first prototype Little Sisters, you know? But well, do you know about the  _ Big Daddies _ ?” Cecil asked, leaning in with an excited grin to murmur to Carlos. “Because most of the other little sisters that have been tested bonded with them fine, not that there’s many Daddies to go around just yet, but Josie hasn’t bonded with any of them, so she doesn’t get to collect any ADAM yet, and mostly gets confined to the orphanage.” Cecil leaned back again, still grinning and his eyes glimmering with something dark and delicious that made Carlos shudder. “Anyway, Tenenbaum, you know Brigid? Have you met her yet? Either way, she wanted Josie to have some time out, around other people, so she asked me to keep an eye on her for tonight!” Cecil finished his explanation in a gush, preening slightly at playing Big Daddy for the night. 

“That’s… fascinating.” Carlos said softly, cupping his chin gently. “But, and I mean no offence by this, how do you know all that? I’m about to start working on the project and I barely knew any of that. How does a mere writer know it all?”

“Just a writer? Ha!” Cecil laughed, waving Carlos off. “I’m more than a writer. Fontaine requires me to make sure that they get new Little Sisters. I write stories about them all, make them look nice and pretty, get little girls cooing over them and wanting to be one, making the choice easier on parents. It’s a fine art, and a very necessary one.” Cecil tucked his free hand into his pocket, humming softly, proudly.

Carlos immediately recalls the books, brightly illustrated and showing smiling little girls with pale faces and glowing eyes. He’d never picked one up, but he definitely knew where he could, and would,  find a copy now.

“So… you get a lot of inside knowledge about the whole… process?” Carlos asked, waving his hand vaguely at the Little Sister, thirsting for knowledge again now he had another source.

“Only what I need to make a good story.” Cecil said with a conspiratorial wink. “The best fiction is based on fact.” He continued, twirling his fingers through the air like he was doing a magic trick. “The ‘fact’ part is always my favourite part and, unfortunately, the part that made me unwelcome  _ up there _ .” Cecil intoned, dropping his voice as he pointed upwards, towards the surface, and stepped closer to Carlos, his smile dark and sultry and melting Carlos’ insides to a hot mess. “Tell me, Doctor Ramirez, on the surface,” Cecil breathed, pressing light fingers to Carlos’ hip and letting his breath run down the scientist’s neck. “Did you ever hear of an author called ‘Kevin Bluffs’?” Carlos shuddered, not unpleasantly, as he swallowed loudly, mind racing to recall blank-covered books filled with tales of the occult, dark nights filled with darker stories of blood orgies, demons and Elder Gods. Men who were not men, who seduced and raped and fed from their victims, for no real reason other than because they were  _ stronger _ and they wanted to prove it. And more than that, as Carlos nodded and felt his cheeks flush with shame, Carlos remembered the nights he had spent reading of people being ripped apart by their own greed and hubris given physical form, all while he was laid in bed pleasuring himself with his free hand.

“I may have.” Carlos answered, voice low and thick, and mind thinking of the very same blank-covered books hidden away under his bed in his apartment in Olympus Heights. “What of him?” 

Cecil gave a low chuckle, his fingers darting beneath Carlos’ coat to push a piece of card into the scientist’s pocket. “That’s one of my many pen names.” The writer laughed, dragging his lips over Carlos’ cheek as he pulled away, smirking with eyes filled with mirth and something dark and hungry.

Carlos watched, cheeks hot and pants tight as Cecil straightened his jacket and cleared his throat, taking Josie’s hand and turning away, hips swaying and drawing all of Carlos’ attention.

“I’ll see you around, Doctor Ramirez.” Cecil called lightly over his shoulder, watching with a grin as Carlos slumped back against the window and shuddered gently.

Carlos spent the rest of the party lurking in the same corner, drinking his wine and keeping his forehead against the window as his mind whirled with the revelations of the night. It was late when Kayali found him, slightly tipsy and giggling even as she tried to frown at him for hiding in a corner for most of the night. It was easy enough to calm her with an apology and lead her out of the party, nodding in thanks at Fontaine on their way past to the door and then down the hall to the Bathysphere station.

Wrangling Kayali into her apartment was easy enough, but falling asleep after having met Kevin Bluffs, no,  _ Cecil Palmer _ , the author that had inspired Carlos to do more, to go further with his research? That was another matter entirely. And to top it off, Cecil had admitted to  _ facts _ being buried amongst his fantastical stories, a statement that had Carlos groaning into his pillow, fighting hard against the urge to rut into his fist while imagining the ‘facts’ Cecil had discovered, when he recalled it later.

The next day Carlos stumbled into the lab half-asleep, having been haunted by teasing dreams of Cecil, damned Cecil, writhing on the tentacles of an Elder God, getting sliced open and sacrificed to an unnamable being, even once being cut open and having Carlos himself lap at the leaking wound until Cecil was moaning and writhing in a desperately gorgeous mix of pain and pleasure.

Luckily all of Carlos’ hard thinking work for the day was pre-done. All he had to do was measure and inject the right amounts of ADAM, EVE and Telekinesis into the brains and then repeating the process with the Telekinesis into his little, currently non-existent cloud. With that in mind, Carlos puttered around, collecting the required equipment and setting it up so he could safely mix all the ingredients, volatile as some of them were. He took his time measuring and mixing, double and triple checking the amounts needed and how much he had, and by lunch time he was ready to put the finishing touches to it. 

Carlos called for silence in the lab, yawned, and added the catalyst to the cloud’s Plasmid mix, a few drops of blood. When the cloud was fully manifested, every last drop of liquid from the beaker gone and the cloud glowing a gentle purple, Carlos pressed the plunger down on the needle set to inject the ADAM, EVE and Telekinesis mix into the brains. The brains jolted slightly and the indicator light Carlos had set up blinked on to indicate proper activity. Carlos sighed in relief. So far so good.

“And now we get the cloud over the brains.” He muttered to himself, stepping away from the cloud and hoping it would follow him as it had taken to doing and, when it did just that, he led the cloud in a circle so it passed over the brains. Carlos stopped mid-step when the cloud was in position and the cloud followed suit, coming to a floating stop just above the brains and turning a startling red, deeper and darker and more  _ violent _ a colour than any of them had seen from it before. “And we hope that it all works out.” Carlos sighed, rocking on his heels as he watched the little cloud shiver and almost writhe in place as it cycled through more colours, from red to blue to a bright vivid pink, but each colour as unusually strong and angry-seeming as the first red.

After a few minutes of watching with baited breath, the cloud stopped shaking and instead lowered itself gently until it was almost sitting on the brains, almost no gap between the bottom of the cloud and the top of the biggest brain. The Cloud’s colour changed back to the soft purple it was when it first manifested and it drifted away from the brains, inching towards the nearest intern with no more speed or intention than it usually showed.

Carlos sighed and turned back to his notes, re-checking his calculations with slumped shoulders. He had enough materials to give it one last go and hopefully it would work out this time, otherwise he’d have to scrap the project and go on to the Gatherer Project unfulfilled.

A throat was cleared behind him and Carlos glanced up to see one of the interns standing beside him, the one that had been closest to the Cloud at the end of the test.

“Yes?” Carlos asked tersely. He had maths to do and no time to waste talking to interns.

“All Hail. All Bow Before The Glow Cloud.” The intern intoned, voice pitched at least an octave lower than usual.

Carlos spun around and took a closer look at the intern, taking in their limp arms and glassy eyes and, when he circled them, the way the Cloud was hovering just behind their head.

“All hail?” He asked, blinking when the intern’s face spread into a too-wide, absent grin.

The intern, the Cloud? laughed and nodded, the cloud drifting away from the intern’s head and spinning circles around Carlos.

“Was that you?” He asked it excitedly, watching as it drifted back over to the intern and the intern, glassy-eyed once more, nodded furiously.

“I did it?” Carlos murmured incredulously. “It worked? I did it!” Carlos cheered, grabbing the intern’s limp hands and spinning them, and by extension the Cloud, around happily.

“All Hail.” The intern muttered.

“All hail indeed, Dave come look!” Carlos called, beckoning his co-worker over and cheering as repeat tests showed the same results. 

The Cloud was sentient and, even better than that, could  _ communicate _ through a vessel. 

“Incredible.” Carlos gasped, grinning so broadly his cheeks hurt.

That night, after much celebrating, as Carlos fell into bed, thoughts of Cecil crept back into his mind and he remembered the card Cecil had slipped into his pocket at the party. He stretched out across his bed and wondered just what was on the card, until curiosity got the better of him and he got up to dig out the pants he’d been wearing.

When he found the card, a dark purple with silvery calligraphy on it detailing a name, Cecil Palmer, and an address, an apartment in Olympus Heights, his heart skipped a beat.

Carlos blinked at the address, just a few floors above him and likely down the hall a ways, but not too far. He could make the trip, knock on Cecil’s door, it wasn’t yet too late, and do… something.

Carlos stalled, chewed on his lip. Surely he hadn’t imagined the look in the writer’s eyes the previous night, and there had to be a reason Cecil had given him his address. But what if he had? Carlos could be projecting all his lust onto Cecil.

Carlos sighed, ran a hand through his already mussed hair, steeled his courage and began tugging on a pair of pants. He tugged a lab coat on to cover his shirtless form and surged out of his apartment, beelining towards the elevator, glad the lobby was empty at this time of night as he jabbed at the button for the fourth floor and waited impatiently for the elevator to take him up.

He was halfway down Cecil’s corridor before he thought about just how he looked, rumpled pants, no shirt but a lab coat providing him with some semblance of modesty, and no shoes, but a wild, likely manic look, in his eyes as he ignored it all and strode towards the right door and rapped on it sharply, shaking away the smarting of his knuckles.

The door was answered a moment later by Cecil in a similar state of undress to Carlos.

“Doctor Ramirez!” Cecil exclaimed, tucking his soft curls behind his ear and tugging self-consciously on his sleep shirt. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” Cecil asked, hungry eyes drinking in the flush on Carlos’ dark cheeks and the peek of soft chest and gently curling chest hair that Carlos’ lab coat didn’t cover.

“Cecil.” Carlos said, voice thick with want at the sight of Cecil, bare-legged except for his short boxers which did nothing to hide the way Carlos’ appearance affected him. “God, Cecil.” Carlos groaned, all trains of thought leaving his mind as he launched forwards, welcomed entirely by Cecil with soft noises as their lips met in a clash of teeth and tongue. 

Carlos pushed Cecil into his apartment with hands grabbing at his hips and fisting in his hair, Cecil reciprocating with the full enthusiasm of his hips rolling deliciously against Carlos’ as Carlos walked him backwards through the apartment, a mirror of Carlos’ but bigger in every way. 

They parted for gasped breaths in the hallway, Carlos pressing close to Cecil and biting hard at the writer’s neck while he keened and groaned, rutting against Carlos’ stomach and panting the scientist’s name.

“Carlos, dear gods Carlos, please.” Cecil moaned to the roof, tugging on Carlos’ hair until the scientist could be coaxed away from sucking a mark onto Cecil’s shoulder to bite at his lips instead and resume their movements towards the bedroom.

They fell into bed together with ease, fitting together like they were made for it and moaning in counterpoint to each other, Cecil’s all high and breathy while Carlos’ were low and guttural, often paired with nails digging into Cecil’s thighs or teeth into his collarbone. 

Carlos kicked his pants off with Cecil’s help, almost ripping the seams in their haste as Cecil reached over to his bedside table for a small vial of oil, grinning mischievously and leaning over to whisper in Carlos’ ear.

“I had hoped, after last night, that this would happen soon.” Cecil huffed, kicking off his boxers and watching in heady desire as Carlos did the same.

Carlos reached, needy and wanting, for Cecil, pulling the man down on top of him and opening the vial of oil to spill it over his fingers and sliding them down Cecil’s spine, enjoying the way the writer writhed in pleasure, and to his ass, along his cleft to press the slicked up digits against Cecil’s hole.

The first two went in easy, with Cecil whining and protesting that he didn’t need to be treated like glass.

“Come on Carlos, gorgeous angelic Carlos, fuck me already.” Cecil whined, rutting his hips backwards against Carlos’ fingers and cooing happily when Carlos worked a third and fourth fingers in in quick succession. “Yes, yes, Carlos, yes.” Carlos moaned loudly in surprise as Cecil bent nearly double to lave his tongue over the head of Carlos’ weeping cock, lapping up the scientist’s precome and suckling gently at it before growing impatient and pouring a lavish amount of the oil over it, slicking it up.

Cecil pulled himself off Carlos’ fingers, mewling gently in disappointment at the loss, even as he took care to line himself up and lower himself slowly onto Carlos’ dick, moaning as Carlos squeezed his hips, fighting the urge to rut up, making himself give Cecil the time to adjust properly.

Carlos swore loudly at the ceiling as Cecil settled himself fully, giving a test roll of his hips and grinning wickedly down at Carlos. Cecil gave Carlos a wink before he started riding the scientist in earnest, lifting himself off and then letting himself drop back down, his hands pressed to Carlos’ chest for support and his nails digging in enough to draw blood as he fucked himself, moaning and mewling and panting, making his pleasure known very vocally. 

Neither of them lasted long, Carlos coming pressed hard into Cecil while Cecil writhed his way through his own orgasm, leaving his come smeared across Carlos’ chest as they fell apart panting.

“Fuck, Cecil.” Carlos panted, reaching out and slapping a hand across Cecil’s hip before stroking it gently with his thumb.

Cecil hummed happily, curling in against Carlos and drifting off to sleep with gentle puffs of breath against Carlos’ shoulder.

Carlos followed shortly, still trying to work out exactly where his plan of just talking to Cecil had gone wrong, but not exactly put out by the overall results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you would like to know more about this au, or my other work, don't hesitate to check me out on [tumblr](http://lonelyboyinthelab.tumblr.com) where you can drop me an ask, a message or heckie even just @ me in a text post. I do my best to respond to everything.  
> Otherwise, I do try to reply to all comments here, and kudos are always appreciated and help keep me writing.
> 
> This chapter was brought to you by my intense desire to write Carlos as 'bad', my need for Cecilos smut and the procrastination of my schoolwork.  
> See you next chapter everyone!


	3. Intermission?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ever since that morning, when Carlos had woken up with Cecil clinging to him like a squid and the pair had shared a breakfast filled with awkward silences and cleared throats, Carlos had been working hard. So hard that he hadn’t had time to see Cecil, or talk to the author, other than a brief hello as they passed in the halls of Fontaine Futuristics. Carlos was often leading test subjects or freshly-made Big Daddies through the halls, taking them off towards the holding cells so they could rest, while Cecil was all but jogging out, notebook full of papers tucked under his arm as he muttered to himself about story starters. Or briefly, if he was lucky, Carlos might have seen Cecil reading to the Little Sisters as he passed to talk to Tenenbaum, the Sister’s glowing eyes all focussed on Cecil as he wove stories about their Daddies, the ones who would protect them from all the mean splicers in the world.
> 
> \--  
> Basically pwp if it was in the middle of a bigger fic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi.  
> Hey.  
> Let's start there.  
> Logistically, aside from the build of Carlos and Cecil's relationship, this chapter really fills no purpose? I just got carried away and wrote nearly 8k words of smut bracketed by fluff. So that's what this chapter is.  
> You will notice that I have bumped the chapter count to 6, that is to make up for the fact that I basically wasted this chapter on smut haha  
> Either way enjoy? I guess?

Ever since that morning, when Carlos had woken up with Cecil clinging to him like a squid and the pair had shared a breakfast filled with awkward silences and cleared throats, Carlos had been working hard. So hard that he hadn’t had time to see Cecil, or talk to the author, other than a brief hello as they passed in the halls of Fontaine Futuristics. Carlos was often leading test subjects or freshly-made Big Daddies through the halls, taking them off towards the holding cells so they could rest, while Cecil was all but jogging out, notebook full of papers tucked under his arm as he muttered to himself about story starters. Or briefly, if he was lucky, Carlos might have seen Cecil reading to the Little Sisters as he passed to talk to Tenenbaum, the Sister’s glowing eyes all focussed on Cecil as he wove stories about their Daddies, the ones who would protect them from all the mean splicers in the world.

Carlos knew it was putting extra stress on him, whenever he saw Cecil’s curled hair or striking eyes the scientist would feel his heart start to race, from a mix of exhilaration and anxiety that had him turning away and all but hiding in a closet until the author moved on, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything to Cecil about it, not when the author looked so happy and healthy, so damned good and put together it made Carlos ache with _want_.

It wasn’t until three weeks after that morning that it truly became A Problem.

More specifically, A Problem in the form of a mildly irate Cecil Palmer cornering Carlos on his way into work, with hands either side of the scientist’s head, crowding him back against the wall just outside the entryway to the Big Daddy labs, a furrowed brow and pouting lips.

“So, _Doctor Ramirez,_ ” Cecil started, voice low and sending shivers down Carlos’ spine as he cowered under the apparent fury of the writer. “Care to explain to me just why you’ve been avoiding me?” Cecil pulled away to put his hands on his hips, trying to glare at Carlos as the scientist gasped, staring in slight awe at the man in front of him, righteous fury and all.

Cecil smirked, watching as Carlos swallowed thickly and darted his tongue out to wet his lips.

“I, uhh…” Carlos said eloquently, eyes skimming down Cecil’s form, clad in the tightest clothes Carlos had seen outside of cocktail dresses. The scientist’s cheeks flushed as his eyes darted around, cataloguing the small details like the way the shirt clung to Cecil’s ribs, highlighting his every breath, or the way his slacks sat _just so_ under his hipbones, making the off-center weight-shift that much more effective.

“Here.” Cecil said, taking pity on the man and pulling a pen from his pocket, lifting Carlos’ hand gently. “Meet me there, we can talk then, when you won’t be late for work.” Cecil scrawled a place name and a series of numbers on the back of Carlos’ hand, the pen dragging and pulling at the scientist’s skin in places and making him hiss slightly. Cecil ended the message with a heart and, after making sure it was clear and easily read against the dark tone of Carlos’ skin, cupped the scientists’ cheek, pressing his lips to the other side in a lingering kiss. “I’ll see you then.” Cecil pulled away, smiling to himself as Carlos shivered, and turned, sashaying down the hall while Carlos watched, eyes locked to the sway of the writer’s hips.

Carlos took a moment to compose himself, mostly by ducking into the closest bathroom and splashing some cold water on his face, and hurried into the Big Daddy labs, mentally cursing himself as he clocked in late.

All day Carlos was distracted from his work, his mind fixed on Cecil and what the writer wanted with, or from, or to do to him. As he worked, writing down observations as he checked in on yesterday’s converts, his mind kept wandering to Cecil, to the strength hidden in his frame, the way he looked, sleep-mussed and bleary eyed, or with eyes filled with desire and lusted thoughts. Eventually Carlos just left for the day, claiming illness as he bustled out of the lab, head down and cheeks flushed and with no one stopping him to question him on the way out.

The problem with leaving work early, a round 3 o’clock in fact, was that it left Carlos with all too much spare time before he was due to meet with Cecil, in another three and a half hours. Carlos realised this as he was halfway home, his lab coat sleeves rolled up and eyes sliding shut as he waited out the Bathysphere trip, startling upright and trying to think of a way to occupy himself until 6:30.

He found himself making his way back to his apartment on autopilot, his hands tucked into his pockets and clipboard held under his arm while he let his mind run a little rampant imagining what could happen later. It could just be dinner and a conversation, it could be an excuse to get a few drinks into Carlos before Cecil took him back to his apartment. It could all be a front and he’d get there to meet Cecil only to be immediately taken back to the author’s apartment, all pretence of dinner and a talk being torn off as fast as his clothes and all emotions being laid bare along with their bodies.

It was these thoughts that found Carlos carrying his clipboard discreetly in front of his groin as he made his way from the Bathysphere station to his apartment, closing the door with his body and immediately discarding his clipboard in order to tear at his belt and get his pants open, working his hand into them to wrap around his stiffening cock and touch himself to the memory of Cecil’s body, of Cecil’s voice pitched high in pleasure, and above all the way Cecil’s face crumpled as he came, his brows knitting upwards while his mouth dropped open in a silent scream, his throat bobbing as he tried to get in a full breath. It didn’t take long before Carlos was shuddering, spilling all over his pants and shirt, and possibly soiling them beyond repair depending on how quickly he could get them into the laundry. He sighed and slumped back against the door, legs shaking slightly as he swiped the back of his hand across his brow, catching the few beads of sweat that appeared.

Carlos took thirty seconds to breathe, his panting easing to slower breaths, occasionally with a small catch in them, as he pushed off the door, checking the lock was in place before heading straight to his bathroom, spinning the taps to run himself a bath before he undressed quickly, dropping everything into the clothes hamper just outside the bathroom door and slipping into the rising warm water, letting out a satisfied groan as he sank to sit against the porcelain bathtub.

When the water level had risen to mid-chest height, Carlos stretched to turn the taps off with his toes, only succeeding in slowing the flow of water to a steady, rapid drip, before he was forced to sit up and turn them off with his hands, shivering slightly as his damp skin was hit by the cooler air of the bathroom. With the taps turned off and the drip stopped, Carlos sank back into the warm water, slipping his steamed-up glassed off and undoing the ribbon tying his hair back, reaching behind him to grab the jar of lavender scented bath salts he had. Carlos unscrewed the jar’s lid and took a moment to inhale their scent of the bath salts, relaxing further as he sprinkled them into the water, letting them dissolve and fill the room with their gentle floral smell.

Carlos slumped down into the bathwater, sinking until his shoulders were covered and he had to bend his knees to fit into the tub properly, tipping his head back against the porcelain rim and letting his mind wander, though keeping his racier thoughts tucked away for later, much later. A few minutes later the bathroom door, which Carlos hadn’t thought to close properly, was nudged open by a groggily floating Khoshekh, who yawned widely, showing off each of his double-layered teeth, and made his way over to drape around Carlos’ shoulders, nuzzling against the scientist’s neck and letting the tips of his tails drag through the water gently.

“Hey there Khoshekh.” Carlos hummed, raising a dripping hand to scratch between the cat’s ears. “Where’ve you been hiding?”

Khoshekh mewled softly in answer, pressing his icy cold nose to Carlos’ jaw and lapping at his skin before curling back down to Carlos’ neck, settling in for what seemed to be Act 2 of his nap. Carlos sighed and sank down a little lower in the bathwater, chuckling softly as Khoshekh complained but stubbornly stayed in position.

Carlos let himself stay in the bath, floating between sleep and being awake, for close to twenty minutes, being lulled by Khoshekh’s gentle purring and the rhythm of his tail swishing through the water just by Carlos’ collarbones, before he pulled himself out of the cooling water, dislodging a disgruntled Khoshekh from his shoulders. Carlos chuckled as Khoshekh rolled over in the air, lying on his back and frowning at Carlos as he patted his arms and chest dry before wrapping his towel around his waist. Carlos chuckled at Khoshekh’s antics, tugging the hand towel from its hook and wrapping it around Khoshekh’s middle, scrubbing it along the cat’s dripping fur and drying him thoroughly despite his whining protests.

“Quit whining Khoshekh, you hate being half-wet. I’m just helping you out.” Carlos scolded, laughing and tugging his hand away  as Khoshekh decided he’d had enough and caught the towel in his claws. “Okay, okay! I’ll stop!” Carlos said, trying to tug the poor towel from Khoshekh’s grip where was tearing into it with teeth and claws. Soon enough Carlos gave up, shaking his head fondly and leaving the bathroom to get dressed.

As he made his way to his wardrobe, Carlos leaned out of his room to check the time on the clock hanging in his living room, just in the right position to be seen if he leaned at the right angle, and huffed slightly when he saw it was only 5pm, too early to get dressed to meet Cecil but too late to be able to justify dirtying a whole new outfit in the meantime. Carlos sat on his bed, boxers and undershirt on and chin resting in his hand, trying to work out what to do for the next hour and a half.

“I could… Hmm.” Carlos flopped back onto his bed, stretching his arms out across the cool sheets as he thought. “I could visit the old lab. Check up on my little Cloud” Carlos hummed to himself, turning as Khoshekh floated, purring and with bits of towel stuck in his teeth, out of the bathroom and down to lay across Carlos’ stomach while he thought. “What do you think, Khoshekh?” He asked rhetorically, scratching along the Chimaera’s jawline as he yawned and kneaded gently at Carlos’ side. “Yeah, that’s about as helpful as I thought you’d be.” Carlos huffed, sighing out a long breath and wincing as Khoshekh dug his claws in slightly. “Christ, watch it Khoshekh.” He cried, placing a hand over the cat’s paw to stop his kneading motion, only to be swatted by his three tails. “Okay, I get it, it’s nap time. I guess I’ll take a nap too.” Carlos sighed, stretching again and shifting, trying to move the pressure point on his legs so the circulation in his calves wouldn’t be cut off by the edge of his mattress.

An hour later Carlos jolted awake as Khoshekh launched himself into the air, claws digging into the scientist’s skin as he pushed off, making him yelp and choke on the saliva built up in his mouth as he stared after his cat.

“What the hell Khoshekh?” He called, easing himself upright and testing his circulation before climbing off his bed and investigating.

Carlos wandered through his apartment, stretching and yawning and listening for Khoshekh’s mewls as he seemed to fight with something?

“Khoshekh, please.” Carlos groaned, rounding the last corner between him and the cat and finding him having batted his food bowl under the fridge and struggling to reach it with his paw. Carlos rested his face in his hand and sighed. “Okay, out of  the way, I’ll get it.” He said, shooing the cat away from the area as he got to his knees, eventually lying flat out on his stomach to fit his arm under the fridge to get the little dish out. “How far under did you push it?” He asked, turning his head away from the fridge as the dust under it started to tickle his nose. His fingers found the edge of _something_ , soft and squishy and that dissolved immediately under his touch, leaving him to pull away with a soft yelp. “God, Khoshekh. Couldn’t just have waited for me to feed you like a normal person, could you?” Carlos grouched, glaring at the pouting cat as he felt around for the missing dish, finally, _finally_ , finding it pressed right up against the back wall.

Carlos teased the dish out and was eventually able to sit up again, holding the completely dusted-over dish in his hand and showing it to Khoshekh. “This is your fault.” He said seriously, watching the cat sniff at it delicately and turn his head away.

Carlos shook his head and sighed, easing his way upright to drop the dish into the sink and get a new one from one of the cupboards. He whistled a soft tune to himself as he set about getting Khoshekh dinner, getting a bag of spleens from the fridge and shaking a full one, and a half one left over from that morning, into the dish and setting it on the floor for the cat.

“You’re a little monster, you know?” He said as Khoshekh darted in between his legs to get to his food faster, nearly tripping Carlos on his way back to the fridge. Khoshekh didn’t answer, not even a mewl, just dug into his food, barely chewing as he ate.

Carlos trudged back to his room, not bothering to glance at the clock on his way, just knowing it must have been nearly 6 if Khoshekh was demanding dinner, and that technically he was already late to meet Cecil, accounting for Bathysphere travel time, and getting dressed and a list of other personal hygiene things Carlos should do. Carlos sighed and set about picking out a suit, eventually settling on a nice navy pinstripe, tugging on his slacks and a plain white shirt before heading to the bathroom to find his glasses and tie his hair back. That done, and with his teeth brushed, Carlos slipped his feet into his shoes and shrugged on his jacket, collecting his keys and wallet from the side table by his front door on his way out, only stopping to say goodbye to Khoshekh on the way out.

“I don’t know when, or if I’ll be back, so don’t wait up.” Carlos waited for Khoshekh to acknowledge him, satisfied when the cat turned around and gave him a slow blink, and left the apartment, locking the door behind him and whistling as he strolled towards the Bathysphere station.

On the Bathysphere into Central Rapture Carlos slowly turned into a nervous wreck, unable to keep still and needing to either tap his feet or pace the small contraption to work all his energy out before it turned into babbling over Cecil during dinner? Drinks? Carlos still wasn’t sure what was going to happen tonight.

As the Bathysphere came up to the station Carlos made himself take three deep, supposedly calming breaths before stepping out, drawing impatient tuts from the waiting passengers, all of which died off quickly as Carlos glared at them.

As Carlos left the Bathysphere station he took in all the glamour around him. He didn’t normally spend a lot of time in the centre of Rapture, generally using it as a stopping zone between home and work, and occasionally the Arcadia Markets when he needed to restock his fridge. There was so much noise around, both actual noise and visual noise, with signs for various establishments around as well as the seemingly never ending noise from the vending machines selling everything from EVE hypos to bandages. It all served to leave Carlos feeling overwhelmed by sensation as he walked through Fort Frolic searching for the place Cecil had said to meet him, Eve’s Garden.

After following the signs for what felt like hours, Carlos was able to find Eve’s Garden or, more accurately, the velvet-swathed hallway leading to it, with a plush red rug and thick curtains blocking out the whale song from the ocean outside. Looking at the signage and the size of the guards posted outside the club, Carlos felt like he didn’t belong. He felt his cheeks heat up and his collar grow tight as he avoided looking at the posters of scantily-clad women lining the hall and filling the front windows, all while his feet dragged him forwards and he found himself addressing one of the guards.

“I’m uh, I’m here to meet Cecil Palmer?” He stammered, swallowing loudly as the guard fixed him with a glare, arms crossed over his chest as he nodded and reached behind him to press a button hidden in the wall.

“It’ll just be a moment.” The guard said, voice low and rough like cement powder and making Carlos shudder, not in a good way.

Carlos nodded and tucked his hands into his pockets, trying not to rock on his heels as he waited for Cecil? Someone else? To come and get him.

About five minutes later a small bell rang out from somewhere hidden and the guards both reached out to open the double doors, bowing as they pulled the metallic-finished wood towards them and revealed a curvy brunette standing there, fluttering her eyelashes coyly at Carlos, her modesty barely retained by a few strategically placed layers of gossamer.

“Doctor Ramirez?” She asked, glossy pouting lips wrapping around Carlos’ name like it was a gift, smiling like he was making her night.

“Yes I, ahem.” Carlos knew his cheeks were burning and hand to look away from the woman. “That’s me. Are you here to, uhm, take me to Cecil?” Carlos coughed, smoothing his hand over his hair and shaking it out nervously.

The woman giggled and bowed her head with another lash flutter. “I will, that is if you don’t see something more _eye catching_ on the way in.” She winked and accentuated her speech with a sway of her hips, the gossamer following in her movements and giving a teasing peek of thick thighs and soft flesh that almost had Carlos laughing hysterically.

“Yes, sure. Uhm. Shall we go?” Carlos asked, wincing as his voice cracked and waving his arm inwards.

The woman giggled again and reached out to catch his arm, tucking herself close to his side as she led him into the club, Carlos’ head spinning from the sudden warmth and humidity as they stepped inside, as well as the immense weight of so many different perfumes lingering in the air. Carlos was totally in the woman’s control, unable to do anything but follow her as she led him around tables and past couches where other ladies draped themselves over the laps of stunning gentlemen who were more interested in sipping their drinks and watching the newcomers than anything else.

They weaved their way upstairs to a low couch, set close enough to the edge of the balcony that it still had a perfect view of the stage in the middle of the floor, which had a piano set up beside it and a single pole extending from the middle of the stage all the way, past the balcony, to the ceiling. As they approached the couch, Carlos could see the back of a head rising above the back of the couch and a single, slim but muscled, arm extended across the back of it, a set of delicate fingers tapping a rhythm against the dark wood.

“Mr Palmer?” The woman at Carlos’ side called, making the man, Cecil, startle and turn, beaming as he saw Carlos standing there.

“Carlos!” He said, voice softer than a sigh but carrying clearly over the general noise of the club. “You came.” He continued, unfolding himself from the couch and sweeping over to envelop Carlos in a hug. Carlos didn’t think twice before wrapping his arms around Cecil in turn, squeezing the writer around the hips and pressing his lips to the man’s neck, breathing in his cologne, something sweet and orange-scented.

“Yes, well.” Carlos started, halting as the woman guiding him flitted over to Cecil’s side to whisper in his ear, stepping away when he nodded slowly.

“Thank you, Simone.” Cecil said, eyes fixed on Carlos with a teasing sparkle dancing in them.

“No worries, Mr Palmer.” The woman said, sweeping her hair over a shoulder and fluffing it up before leaving them, light on her toes, almost like she was dancing.

“Sorry I’m late, Cecil.” Carlos said, following Cecil’s guiding touches into slipping out of his coat and discarding it over one of the armrests. “My cat fell asleep on me. And well, when Khoshekh doesn’t want you to move, you don’t move.” Carlos sighed, following Cecil as the author folded into the couch and nodded understandingly as he placed his hand on Carlos’ knee.

“On the surface I had a cat like that. I mean, I had to give him up to come down here, but he was just the _cutest thing_.” Cecil said, rubbing his thumb in circles against Carlos’ knee and making his mind short circuit a little. “But the real question here, darling Carlos,” Cecil continued, leaning in close until his breath was puffing against Carlos’ cheek, so close Carlos could turn his head and they’d be kissing. “How do you have a cat down here?” Cecil whispered, his lips brushing Carlos’ cheek as he spoke.

“Uh, well.” Carlos started, shifting a little towards the armrest, to give him a buffer between himself and Cecil so he could think. “He’s not actually a cat? Not fully, that is.” Carlos explained, voice thick with the heady scents in the room and hands playing in his lap in an attempt to cover up the effect Cecil’s proximity was having on him. “He’s actually a Chimaera? A great feat of genetic engineering. He’s uh,” Carlos paused, trying to recall the exact numbers, “70% cat, 20% shark and 10% octopus.”

Cecil’s eyes widened, his mouth opening into a soft ‘oh’ as he leaned further into Carlos’ space, reaching out to tuck an escaping lock of Carlos’ hair behind his ear. “That’s incredible. Did _you make him_ , magical Carlos?” Cecil breathed, eyes glimmering in excitement.

“No, I uh.” Carlos cleared his throat and looked away from Cecil, breaking contact with those enrapturing eyes. “It was Rochelle’s project. She did all of the work really. I, uh. Held tools for her, at one point in time.” Carlos gave a soft, choked chuckle, turning back to Cecil with a slightly wavering smile. “But then the interns killed her so I was left to care for him. Lucky me, right?” Carlos laughed gently, shivering as Cecil squeezed at his thigh and turning back to look at the author, his predatory gaze smoothed into a soft apologetic smile.

“It sounds like he’s the lucky one to me.” Cecil purred, draping his fingers around to tap a gentle rhythm against Carlos’ inner thigh.

Carlos blushed even more, if it was possible, and squeaked a little as Cecil leaned in and pressed his lips to the corner of Carlos’ mouth, the writer’s eyes sliding shut as he hummed appreciatively, the tone low and rumbling through Carlos’ body as he pulled away. “I, uh.” Carlos stammered, mouth going dry as Cecil opened his eyes slowly, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a smile as Carlos gasped. “How, uh, how did you get to Rapture?” Carlos blurted, twiddling his thumbs in his lap and looking down as Cecil blinked, clearly taken aback by Carlos’ question.

“By boat, my darling Carlos. How else?” Cecil answered, smirking teasingly and sitting back a little, letting Carlos have his breathing room back. “I came with my… uncle, of sorts.” Cecil started, pausing and choosing his words carefully. “Frank Fontaine. He knew I wrote… unconventional things, and so when he heard about Rapture, well,” Cecil chuckled softly, tracing his fingertips around Carlos’ knee as he stared off into space, remembering. “He offered me a way into the city, so long as I did some work to repay him.” Cecil turned back to Carlos with a smile, dancing his fingertips a few inches up Carlos’ leg.

“So that’s why you write the books, the Big Daddy and Little Sister ones?” Carlos asked, leaning in and placing his hand, in turn, on Cecil’s knee.

Cecil stifled a little gasp and a squeak, his cheeks flushing as he nodded in answer. “Absolutely!” The writer took a moment to clear his throat, regaining control before speaking again. “The whole subject matter is actually quite interesting when you think about it though, I’ve been trying to learn the science behind it,” Cecil admitted sheepishly, fluttering his lashes at Carlos. “I’ve been _very_ into science recently.” He said, pitching his voice lower, sending a delicious shudder through Carlos.

Carlos found himself staring, first at Cecil’s dark, predatory eyes, and then lower, at his delectable lips, remembering how they felt pressed against his own, against other parts of his body. Carlos caught himself and coughed awkwardly, making himself look out over the edge of the balcony to the empty stage and the pianist, just playing soft jazz to float through the air for now.

Carlos took a shaky breath, trying to make himself calm down a little, telling himself it was ridiculous to be this turned on just from a hand on his thigh. He turned back to face Cecil, mouth wrapping around the first word of a sentence only to falter upon seeing Simone back with a tray of drinks, placing a glass of whiskey or something on the table while Cecil was mid-sip with a second glass, his throat bobbing as he lowered the glass and licked at his lips, catching the last drops of liquid and sighing happily.

“Thank you, Simone. Well made, as always.” Cecil said, waving a lightly dismissive hand and smiling at Simone before turning back to Carlos, smile changing from thankful to heavy and lusty in a split second when he saw Carlos’ face.

“Yes, dear Carlos?” Cecil raised his eyebrow in question at Carlos’ gaze, setting his glass on the table and leaning into the scientist. Carlos’ eyes darted around the club, briefly settling on Simone’s back, watching her retreat before he swallowed noisily and made a soft, helpless, noise in the back of his throat, leaning in and pressing his lips firmly against Cecil’s, raising one of his hands to grab at Cecil’s collar and pull him closer, sliding his other hand up Cecil’s leg until it was threatening to slip under his belt.

Cecil’s grip on Carlos’ thigh tightened as he smiled into the kiss, teasing Carlos’ lips apart with his own and raising his free hand to cup Carlos’ cheek. Carlos moaned lowly and leaned backwards, lying himself fully flat against the armrest and using his grip on Cecil’s collar to pull the writer on top of him, Cecil following him with a gleeful noise and his hand sliding up to Carlos’ hip, squeezing and kneading at the slight amount of chub over the joint. Cecil leaned himself over Carlos, tugging at the ribbon in the Scientist’s hair and darting his tongue out to lick at Carlos’ lower lip, making the man groan deep in his chest and his hips jerk upwards against his will.

Carlos turned his head, gasping for breath as Cecil moved his attentions, kissing along Carlos’ cheekbone and down his jaw, making the other shake and writhe, his hands fisting in Cecil’s shirt and ruining the well-pressed material as he gasped out Cecil’s name. Cecil hummed softly, kissing his way down Carlos’ jugular and tugging gently at the skin with his teeth, breaking away to murmur softly, his lips brushing Carlos’ skin as the scientist whined.

“Hush, sweetest Carlos, I’ve got you.” Carlos keened softly, pulling at Cecil’s clothes until the author returned his lips to press against Carlos’, heat building between them with the slick movements of their tongues, the dry drag of their lips against each other, and Carlos’ desperate, muffled moans and whines, his hips arching off the couch, begging for more.

A cleared throat from behind the couch made the pair freeze, the kiss breaking, though Carlos kept his eyes squeezed shut, not wanting it to be over.

“Excuse me, Mr Palmer?” A soft voice came, making Carlos blink his eyes open to see a short woman with blonde curls and red lacquered lips frowning down at Cecil as he sighed and straightened himself.

“Yes,  Sarah.” Cecil groaned, unhappy at being interrupted, not attempting to soften the roughness of his voice adding a steely edge to his words. “How can I help you?” He blew at his fringe where it had fallen in his eyes, not succeeding at keeping it out of the way, but the whole action served to show how much he’d rather be doing something, or rather some _one_ else.

“Mr Cohen would like me to tell you,” Sarah paused, drawing her eyes very deliberately over Carlos’ prone and flushed form, pulling attention to the way that Cecil was all but straddling the scientist. “That if you plan on bringing your _friends_ in here, then you had best behave. He does have _some_ reputation to uphold, even here.”

Cecil huffed and swore softly, easing his way off Carlos, and helping the scientist straighten himself out a little. “Yes, okay, we’ll be leaving in just a moment. Thank you, Sarah.” Cecil added, smiling sweetly, and letting it drop into a pout and rolled eyes the second she was gone. “I am so sorry, Carlos. I should have controlled myself better.”

Carlos laughed softly, awkwardly, and reached out to take Cecil’s hand, stroking his thumb along his knuckles. “I’m just as much to blame as you.” Carlos said softly, voice low and thick and catching a little in his throat. Carlos heaved himself up from the couch, picking up his jacket from the couch’s armrest and carrying it in his arms over his lap, smiling sheepishly at Cecil’s cocky grin and raised eyebrow.

“Let’s get you out of here, Doctor Ramirez.” Cecil said, pitching his voice low and grinning more as Carlos shuddered.

“Yes, _please_.” Carlos choked, leaning into Cecil as the author picked up his own jacket and wrapped an arm around Carlos’ waist to lead him along the balcony, down the stairs and out of the club, the cool and relatively fresh air of Fort Frolic all but smacking the pair in the face as they stepped out.

They bustled down the hall leading to Fort Frolic’s main hall, their footsteps muffled in the carpet as Cecil giggled, his hand flitting back and forth between leading Carlos by a grip on his elbow of a soft press against his lower back.

“That’s one to go on my list. Kicked out from a strip club.” Cecil chuckled to himself, leading a mildly embarrassed and half-incoherent Carlos towards the Bathysphere station, hand settled firmly at the small of Carlos’ back as the scientist kept his head high, despite his flushed cheeks and the way his hair was looking thoroughly mussed. “So,” Cecil hummed as they stepped into the bright lights of the Bathysphere station, sliding onto one of the empty benches to wait for the next ‘sphere. “Did you want to maybe, come up for coffee?” Cecil asked, smirking and watching as Carlos reached up and untied the ribbon in his hair, shaking his locks out and running his fingers through them.

“That sounds wonderful.” Carlos said, voice still thick with want as he hooked the ribbon under his hair, tugging it up and tying a small bow around his hair.

Cecil swallowed thickly as he watched Carlos’ hands work, shaking out and then tying back his luscious hair. “Mhm, seems like we have a plan.” Cecil grinned, licking his lips and leaning in against Carlos, placing his hand on the scientist’s thigh.

“Seems like we do,” Carlos hummed in agreement, pushing up off the bench as a Bathysphere surfaced, its passengers disembarking and Carlos and Cecil stepping in, the only passengers heading away from Central Rapture.

As the Bathysphere door eased shut, a wicked, fox-like grin stole across Cecil’s face, the writer turning in his seat and smirking at Carlos until the writer raised an eyebrow at him in question.

“How long would you say it takes the Bathysphere to get from Central to Olympus?” Cecil asked as the Bathysphere sank slowly, the view of the station getting more distorted by water with every passing second.

“About 20 minutes? Give or take of course.” Carlos answered, brow furrowed and chewing on his lip slightly. “Why?”

Cecil leaned in, letting a shaky breath ghost over Carlos’ neck and delighting in the scientist’s shudder. “How likely do you think it is,” Cecil whispered, a hand trailing up along Carlos’ thigh as he spoke, “that I can get you to come apart _completely_ in that time?” Cecil finished speaking at the same time as his hand reached Carlos’ groin, the author ending his question with an emphatic grind of the palm of his hand against the distinct bulge in Carlos’ pants.

Carlos couldn’t find the words to answer, caught between encouraging the writer and discouraging him, glancing at his watch as Cecil teased at his fly, licking his lips and leaning in to press them against Carlos’. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.” Cecil teased, his lips brushing Carlos’ with every word until all the scientist could do was grab Cecil’s hips and pull him into his lap, growling as he kissed the writer and rutted up against him.

Their kiss was brutal, all teeth and bruising force as Cecil ground his hips down against Carlos, moaning low in his throat and dragging the scientist’s hands around to his ass, pushing back into them and mewling in delight as Carlos got the idea and started squeezing, kneading and massaging the flesh. Carlos pulled Cecil down against him, moaning loudly into Cecil’s mouth as he felt the writers hard length caught between them alongside his own, shuddering pleasantly at the knowledge as he slid his hands under Cecil’s pants, groping heavily at the sumptuous flesh. Carlos pulled his mouth away from Cecil’s to moan his praises into the man’s neck, biting into the flesh and listening to Cecil’s keens echo around the Bathysphere as he lifted his hips, rutting frantically against Cecil as he felt his end approaching him, chasing down the crest of pleasure.

Carlos dug his nails into Cecil’s flesh, directly into the skin where the man’s underwear had ridden up, and moaned, the sound turning into a low keen as Cecil fought his way out of Carlos’ grip, smirking and doing what he could to straighten himself out as the Bathysphere started to surface at the Olympus Heights station.

“Cecil,” Carlos growled, reaching for the writer only to have his hand playfully slapped away.

“Patience, Doctor Ramirez.” Cecil said, dropping Carlos a wink over his shoulder. “And as delectable and debauched you look right now, you really should at least attempt to pull yourself together.”

Carlos’ head thudded back against the Bathysphere’s side as he groaned, low and pained and begging for Cecil, only to have the writer shake his hips and his head, a smirk playing across his lips as he watched the water level against the glass lower.

“You had better tidy yourself quickly, darling Carlos,” Cecil teased, tucking his hands into his pockets and whistling tunelessly as Carlos pulled himself up from the Bathysphere bench, stumbling slightly as it lurched to a stop and sat for a moment, the water running off the Bathysphere and the door getting ready to hiss open.

Carlos tugged at his shirt, managing to straighten it out somewhat as the Bathysphere door popped open, the pressure hissing out before the door swung outwards, opening slowly and letting the pair out, Cecil grabbing Carlos’ hand and dragging the grumbling scientist out of the Bathysphere and down the halls, leading him to the elevator.

They stepped in, Cecil pressing Carlos to the back of the cylinder as he pressed the button for his floor, slotting himself against Carlos’ front as they started moving upwards and kissing the scientist breathlessly, rolling his hips forwards and groaning as he felt Carlos’ hands lock around his waist, raising his hands to fist in Carlos’ hair, pulling it out of its ribbon and moaning as Carlos growled deep in his throat.

“Carlos, Gods.” Cecil panted, tearing his lips from Carlos’ to huff into his hair, his hips still rolling against Carlos’ as the scientist squeezed his hips, hands sliding under his belt again and revelling in the authors shaky gasps.

The elevator came to a stop with a ding, the couple barely wanting to pull apart and continuing to kiss against the back of the lift instead, heated and desperate until Cecil heard the door start to slide shut again and had to launch himself from Carlos’ grip to catch them, beckoning the scientist out with a crooked finger and a heated, predatory gaze that had Carlos weak at the knees as he followed Cecil down the hall.

They made it to Cecil’s door quickly, the author sliding his key into the lock and dragging Carlos with him into his apartment by his belt loops, barely waiting for the door to slide shut again before he descended on Carlos, mewling and moaning, his lips searching for Carlos’ as his fingers scrabbled at Carlos’ shirt buttons, undoing them one by one with trembling fingertips as Carlos panted into his mouth, hands on his hips and sneaking their way around and under Cecil’s pants.

Cecil tugged the tails of Carlos’ shirt out of his pants and started fumbling at the scientist’s belt, growling into Carlos’ mouth as he struggled to get the buckle undone, changing instead to tug as Carlos’ belt loops, stepping away from the door and dragging Carlos with him by his lips and hips. Carlos followed Cecil down the hallway willingly, stumbling over his feet trying to keep up, to keep his lips pressed to Cecil’s, licking at the writer’s teeth and whining as he pulled away, each step getting them closer to his rumpled bed until Cecil hit it and dropped down heavily. Cecil grinned up at Carlos from his new position, his hands having dragged down Carlos’ body before catching on the scientist’s belt and pulling his pants down a half inch, revealing the ‘v’ of his hips and the delectable curls of hair leading down to his cock.

Carlos groaned, fisting his hands in Cecil’s hair as he leant in and kissed along the lines of Carlos’ hips, deft fingers working at his belt until it was undone, loosening its hold on Carlos’ hips and letting his slacks drag down another inch, leaving Cecil free to latch his watering mouth to Carlos’ hip, sucking a dark mark into his skin and revelling in the sharp gasp from above and the nails digging into his scalp.

Cecil moved around, pressing kisses and sucking marks all over Carlos’ hips while the scientist shuddered under his hands, his hips pressing forwards and endless moans and growls dropping from his lips as his hands scrabbled for purchase against Cecil’s shoulders.

“Cecil,” Carlos sighed, hips jerking forwards as the author cupped the bulge in his slacks with a smirk and a lick of his lips. “Please, Gods, Cecil.” Carlos moaned, head dropping forwards as Cecil unfastened his slacks and let the garment drop to the floor and pool around Carlos’ ankles.

“Yes, darling dearest Carlos?” Cecil asked, voice rough with want as he traced slow circles against Carlos’ thigh, just under the line where his boxers ended.

Carlos gave a helpless whine, letting himself fall forward into Cecil’s lap, gasping and pressing himself close, legs tucked either side of him as he shamelessly rutted downwards against Cecil, hips undulating and chest heaving with his breaths as he moved. Cecil groaned against Carlos’ chest, his lips pressed to his scientist’s heart as he squeezed his hips, rutting up against Carlos’ desperate writhing, the pair getting caught up in each other, in the race to the finish line that was looming over them.

Cecil mouthed at Carlos’ chest, his lips latching onto anything in reach, hair, skin, a nipple which he latched onto more properly, just to hear Carlos’ delicious whimper over again as the scientist tugged at his own hair, his back arching as he pressed his hips forwards, mewling and gasping loudly as he pressed forwards in shorter, sharper motions, rubbing against Cecil’s stomach and edging himself onwards. Cecil splayed his hands over Carlos’ back, pressing the scientist close to him as he made a move to roll them over, slotting himself over Carlos and letting himself rut fully against the scientist, his hips pistoning as he gasped Carlos’ name against his chest, moaning long and low as his climax snuck up on him, sinking his teeth into Carlos’ shoulder as the scientist writhed under him, calling Cecil’s name like a prayer. Cecil swore against Carlos’ skin, hands roaming over his side and catching on his stiff nipples, touching and teasing and pushing the scientist until he arched upwards with a sharp cry, body staying taut until it relaxed, all at once as he slumped back against Cecil’s bed. Carlos breathed raggedly, blinking up at the wondrous look on Cecil’s face before he descended, catching Carlos’ lips in a loose and leisurely kiss and gently lowering himself to lie on top of the scientist, sighing out a contented breath as he lazily kissed along his neck.

Carlos hummed something, an attempt at a lazy word only to give up and slide his hands under Cecil’s shirt, still fully buttoned but thoroughly crumpled and untucked enough to allow the scientist to press his hands against Cecil’s sweaty spine. Carlos trailed his clumsy, tired fingers along it, idly counting his vertebrae as their breathing evened out from shuddery gasps and pants to calmer, satiated and sleepy breaths.

“Should clean up.” Cecil murmured, words thick and slurred as he wriggled his way off Carlos, chuckling softly at Carlos’ protesting mewl and kissing his pouting lips. “You’ll say thank you in the morning my sweet.” Cecil said, heaving himself off the bed and slowly stripping his shirt off, ignoring Carlos’ appreciative noises as he stepped through to the bathroom, spinning taps to start a bath running. “Do you prefer bubbles or bath salts?” Cecil asked, his voice echoing out of the bathroom, along with his laugh as Carlos made a noncommittal noise and pulled himself off Cecil’s bed.

Carlos shrugged his shirt off his arms, where it had been tangled around his elbows, and dropped his boxers, leaving them in a neat-ish pile as he followed Cecil’s path to the bathroom, pressing himself to Cecil’s back as the writer poured a liberal amount of citrus-scented bath salts into the steaming water, reaching behind him to run a fond hand through Carlos’ hair.

“You can get in if you want, I won’t be a minute.” Cecil said softly, turning his head to press a kiss to Carlos’ temple before he shuffled away, leaving the scientist to sway slightly and clamber into the bathtub, settling in with a low groan.

Carlos tipped his head back, eyes sliding shut as the warm water made his already-loose muscles feel even looser, getting him ready to all but fall asleep in the water. Carlos opened his eyes slowly as he heard Cecil curse softly, blinking across as he watched Cecil put out a hand to lean against the wall, shimmying his slacks down his long legs and stepping out of them delicately, bending down to pick them up and drape them over his arm. Cecil disappeared from Carlos’ sight momentarily, reappearing quickly sans pants and underwear, smirking as Carlos openly enjoyed the view, mouth watering as he took in the planes of Cecil’s body, the places marked by Carlos’ nails or teeth, all fitting together to form a very appealing image that had Carlos’ spent cock giving twitching against his thigh in an attempt to get hard again as Cecil stalked over.

“Let’s get you all cleaned up, Doctor Ramirez,” Cecil purred, dropping to his knees gently and scooping up a wash cloth, dipping it into the bathwater and dragging it over Carlos’ stomach, smiling at the way the scientist's stomach muscles jumped at the touch, shivering lightly before settling again as Cecil rubbed in slow circles.

“‘D rather you in here with me.” Carlos murmured, grabbing Cecil’s hand and raising it to his mouth to press a series of kisses to his knuckles.

“That can be arranged.” Cecil hummed, retracting his hand and standing, slipping his feet into the bath one at a time before sliding into a seated position, quickly getting manhandled around until his back was pressed to Carlos’ chest.

“Much better.” Carlos assented, pressing his face into Cecil’s hair and sighing happily as the writer worked at cleaning them both of sweat and come, slowly leaving them sitting in grimy water but thoroughly clean.

Carlos was all but asleep when Cecil pulled the plug out, jolting with the drainage of water and making a softly confused noise as Cecil hushed him and guided him out of the bath, patted him down with a towel and protested when he tried to do the same in return. Cecil dried himself off and led Carlos back to the bedroom, hand on his back and face in his hair, humming a soft tune as he gathered a pair of underwear and sleep pants for the both of them from his wardrobe, dressing himself and then kissing Carlos gently as the scientist wobbled and tugged the clothes on.

They climbed into bed together, Carlos humming and sighing as he tucked himself close to Cecil, pressing his cheek to the writers chest as Cecil dragged his fingers through Carlos’ hair.

“Carlos, dearest, sweetest, Carlos.” Cecil murmured, smiling lovingly at Carlos’ sleepy noise of acknowledgement, the way he turned his face towards Cecil even though he didn’t open his eyes. “I think,” Cecil said, pressing a tiny kiss to the furrow in between Carlos’ eyebrows.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't lie, I'm nt fully happy with the end of this mostly because I was up Too Late last night and then I wanted to finish this, to hopefully give all you Americans (and yknow generally other people too) something pleasant to maybe read before bed? I dunno i'm really sorry about the election.  
> anyway  
> find me on [tumblr](http://lonelyboyinthelab.tumblr.com)  
> comments and kudos are, as always appreciated  
> and next chapter we return to the previously planned events of this story haha  
> now im gonna go pass out and (for once) not obsessively check for comments  
> <3 love you all. every last one of you.  
> Thank you


	4. Pre-Domesticity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “‘Morning darling.” Cecil purred, pressing his smile to Carlos’ chest in a kiss as the scientist stretched and hummed, dragging his hand down Cecil’s back.
> 
> “‘Morning.” Carlos grunted, forcing his eyes open to blink at the ceiling, sighing as Cecil resumed pressing kisses to his skin. “What’s the time?” Carlos asked, fingers trailing down to tuck under the waistband of Cecil’s pants.
> 
> Cecil hummed softly, wriggling around to kiss at Carlos’ ribs. “Early. Maybe. Too early.”
> 
> \--  
> Some smut, some fluff, some horrifying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So i've been sitting on this for  
> like 2.5 weeks now  
> goin nowhere with it  
> but it needs to be posted and idk maybe this'll help shake some things loose so i can keep it going.  
> Thank you So Much To The Ever-wonderful [Aleph_null/Oh-Fanon-my-canon](http://oh-fanon-my-canon.tumblr.com)  
> he had a direct hand in parts of this, helping w transition scenes  
> but also an indirect hand by just letting me talk at him until i worked out what i was doing (and helping me make it happen)  
> so yeah special thanks to him <3<3<3  
> otherwise, enjoy and hopefully i won't leave you waiting too long for the next chapter.  
> Also it may be useful to reread previous chapters just to make sense of the timeline some.

Carlos woke slowly to a solid weight and warmth on top of him and gentle lips trailing along his neck and shoulders.

“‘Morning darling.” Cecil purred, pressing his smile to Carlos’ chest in a kiss as the scientist stretched and hummed, dragging his hand down Cecil’s back.

“‘Morning.” Carlos grunted, forcing his eyes open to blink at the ceiling, sighing as Cecil resumed pressing kisses to his skin. “What’s the time?” Carlos asked, fingers trailing down to tuck under the waistband of Cecil’s pants.

Cecil hummed softly, wriggling around to kiss at Carlos’ ribs. “Early. Maybe. Too early.”

Carlos chuckled lowly, digging his fingers into Cecil’s skin and gasping softly as the writer bit him gently, worrying the skin between his teeth with a mischievous grin.

“Isn’t it ‘too early’?” Carlos asked teasing and light as he shifted under Cecil, sliding his hand further down under his pants to grab a proper handful of Cecil’s ass, squeezing it as he moaned and let go of Carlos’ skin.

“It’s never too early for this.” Cecil smirked, rolling his hips gently against Carlos’ leg and making a soft noise as Carlos grabbed his chin gently, angling it towards him until they were kissing, Carlos’ tongue and teeth teasing at Cecil’s lips while he panted.

Carlos kept one hand on Cecil’s face, stroking along his cheek as they kissed, his other hand pushing at Cecil’s hips until the writer got the idea, smirking into the kiss as he climbed over to straddle Carlos properly, rolling his hips downwards and moaning deliciously. Cecil’s hands dragged up Carlos’ body, coming to rest in the scientist’s hair as he rocked his hips upwards, hand pressed to Cecil’s lower back and pressing him downwards, guiding the motions of his hips as they started moving together in earnest. Carlos’ hand trailed down, pushing under the waistband of Cecil’s pants again, squeezing gently as he pushed backwards into Carlos’ hand, moaning and sucking on the scientist’s lower lip.

Carlos moaned lowly, shuffling his hand around and trailing his fingers between Cecil’s cheeks to press a fingertip against Cecil’s hole, grinning and biting Cecil’s lip as he pushed back, groaning loudly with fluttering lashes before he pushed forwards again, pressing his quickly-stiffening dick against Carlos’. Carlos palmed Cecil’s ass, groping and squeezing and pressing a second finger to the writer’s hole, keeping a steady pressure against it as Cecil gasped, his mouth dropping open as he wriggled his hips, whining when the pressure of Carlos’ fingers didn’t let up at all, threatening to breach Cecil at any moment.

“ _Carlos_ ,” Cecil moaned, dropping his head to mouth at the scientist’s shoulder, dragging his teeth over the bone as Carlos shuddered, pressing harder against Cecil’s hole and making the writer mewl, jerking his hips downwards in an attempt to escape the pressure.

“Yes Cecil?” Carlos asked, voice deep and thick, attempting to be teasing and missing the mark with his desire.

“ _Please,”_ Cecil begged, panting hotly across Carlos’ skin as he was caught between rocking forwards to press against Carlos’ hips and cock, or backwards to feel the press of the scientist’s fingers more.

“Please _what?_ ” Carlos hissed, dragging his fingers against Cecil’s hole and rocking his hips upwards at the same time, relishing the writer’s keen as  he followed the gentle presses of Carlos’ body.

“Gods Carlos, _I need you_.” Cecil whined, hands dragging along Carlos’ skin to pull at his pants, trying to tug them out of the way so he could get his hands on Carlos’ dick.

Carlos inhaled sharply, his mouth going dry as he tried to swallow, lifting his hips so Cecil could push his pants down, kicking them down to his ankles and out of the way while the scientist tugged at Cecil’s waistband, getting them down just far enough that they could rut skin to skin, both moaning as Carlos’ fingers dug into Cecil’s hips, the writer mouthing at Carlos’ neck, his hands roaming and touching everywhere from his hips to his nipples to pulling at his hair.

“Cecil, shit,” Carlos moaned, shuddering under Cecil, dragging his nails up Cecil’s back to grab a rough handful of the writer’s hair and drag him upwards into a kiss, biting and tugging at Cecil’s lips and tongue until he was whining and shaking, rolling his hips down against Carlos with a soft hiss at the dry friction, his hands coming to rest at Carlos’ hips with a squeeze.

Cecil whined into Carlos’ mouth as he worked a hand between their bodies to grab both their cocks in hand, trailing gentle fingers over their heads and shafts, smearing precome along the way to ease their grinding, leaving them panting and gasping and pressing closer to each other rather than hissing and pulling away a little.

Carlos groaned lowly, pushing his hips against Cecil’s and biting at the writer’s lips gently, giving tiny loving nips as the writer shuddered, his hips stuttering as he gave a soft cry, spilling over Carlos’ hand and stomach. Cecil’s eyes were squeezed shut as he went slack, shifting his hips against Carlos’ and smiling softly as the scientist keened, grabbing at Cecil’s hips and rolling upwards, chasing his own release.

“Here, let me,” Cecil murmured, stilling Carlos’ hips with a hand and grinning down at the scientist, pressing his lips to Carlos’ to kiss him sweetly as he kicked off his pants fully, pushing them away to join Carlos’ at the end of the bed. Cecil trailed kisses down Carlos’ jaw and neck, pressing kisses to every inch of Carlos’ skin he passed as he wriggled down the bed, making the scientist giggle and squirm.

“Cecil,” Carlos started, breathless as he combed his fingers through Cecil’s hair and pulled gently as Cecil kissed at his hips, tracing a path across until he was kissing at the base of Carlos’ cock, tongue lapping gently at the soft skin while the scientist choked on a moan, barely keeping himself from pressing his hips upwards.

“Yes, my darling Carlos?” Cecil hummed, smirking to himself as Carlos’ hands fisted, one in the sheets and one in Cecil’s hair, while the writer dragged his tongue along the underside of Carlos’ cock.

“Gods, Cecil,” Carlos hissed, lifting his head to look down the length of his body at Cecil as he wrapped his lips around the head of Carlos’ cock, suckling gently and lapping away the precome beading there. Carlos squeezed his eyes shut, shuddering as Cecil eased his way down Carlos’s dick, fingers drawing mesmerising circles against Carlos’ thighs as his tongue did the same against his cock.

Cecil moaned softly, sliding his way off Carlos’ cock to kiss down its length again, ghosting his teeth along it with a wicked grin as Carlos jerked his hips upwards, just an inch before catching himself with a low noise, pressing his hips back to the bed and tugging at Cecil’s hair roughly  until the writer groaned. Cecil looked up at Carlos, eyes dark and hungry as he called the scientist’s name softly, waiting for him to look and watch as Cecil pressed sucking kisses along his cock until he reached the tip and winked at Carlos before latching his mouth around it and swallowing it down gently, giving a tease of teeth that had Carlos sobbing a moan and pushing his hips upwards as he came, spilling into Cecil’s mouth and gasping as the writer swallowed  around him, tongue tracing lazily around his cock as he pulled off and pressed his cheek to Carlos’ thigh.

“Christ, _Cecil_.” Carlos panted, dragging his fingers through Cecil’s hair as the writer hummed and kissed at Carlos’ hip. “That was. Wow.”

Cecil chuckled lowly, crawling his way up Carlos’ body to press a kiss to his cheek and curl along the side of his body. “G’morning.”

“Good morning indeed.” Carlos smiled, turning in place to press a brief kiss to Cecil’s lips, trailing his fingers along the writer’s face. “How about we get dressed and go out for breakfast?” Carlos asked, dancing his fingers down Cecil’s arm to his waist, thumb stroking at the bottom of his ribs.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea, lovely Carlos.” Cecil murmured, brushing his nose against Carlos’ and pulling himself upright, tugging the scientist along with him.

“I should go home and get clothes. And feed Khoshekh first.” Carlos sighed, pressing his cheek to Cecil’s shoulder and wrapping his arms around the writer’s waist.

“If you want to, you can borrow some clothes first, and then we can stop by on the way out.” Cecil offered, pressing his palms to Carlos’ back and revelling in the feeling of the skin-to-skin contact.

Carlos nodded slowly, sighing and pushing himself away from Cecil and into a standing position, reaching out a hand to pull Cecil up after him and blinking up at the writer as they stood, chest-to-chest, before Cecil moved away towards his wardrobe, stretching his arms on his way.

“If you want to have a shower, go ahead. I’ll have some clothes waiting when you’re done.” Cecil said, turning to blow a kiss at Carlos and wave towards the bathroom. “Either of those towels in there are fine for you to use.”

“Okay. Thanks Ceec.” Carlos murmured, trailing his fingers along Cecil’s waist as he passed the writer on his way to the bathroom, smiling to himself at the casual touch, the soft intimacy of it as he started the shower and climbed in, letting the just too hot water wash over him. As he stood under the water, Carlos let his mind drift, thinking about a possible life with Cecil, waking to the other man, coming home to him and Khoshekh. It would be okay, Carlos decided, humming a soft tune to himself as he glided hands over his body, easing off sweat and come while he imagined an everyday life with Cecil.

“Carlos? Sweet Carlos, I put clothes on my bed for you when you’re done.” Cecil called, opening the bathroom door an inch to speak through the gap.

Carlos pulled the shower curtain out of the way, looking to the door where Cecil was standing, mouth ajar and openly staring as Carlos crooked a finger and beckoned Cecil over.

“We’ll save time, hop in.” Carlos said, dragging a hand down his chest and watching in wonder as Cecil gulped and stepped into the bathroom, dick already twitching upwards as he crossed towards Carlos, stepping into the shower and yelping slightly at the temperature of the water.

“Carlos,” Cecil gasped softly, water dripping into his eyes as Carlos pressed his hands to Cecil’s hips, trailing one around to palm at Cecil’s ass while the other cupped his dick, wrapping around it and quickly stroking it to hardness while Cecil shivered and moaned against Carlos’ neck. “Carlos, please,” Cecil groaned, pressing his hips into Carlos’ hands, whining as the scientist grabbed one of Cecil’s hands and guided it down to his cock, growling and pushing his hips upwards into the writer’s hand as he started stroking gently, the water slicking the movements perfectly.

Soon enough Cecil was keening, shuddering and sinking his teeth into Carlos’ shoulder as he came, the scientist following soon after with a low hiss and moan as he spilled over Cecil’s hand, tugging the writer’s mouth to his to share a breathless, gasping kiss where their lips never quite aligned and their tongues brushed past each other and only shared fleeting touches.

Carlos broke the kiss, dragging his fingers through Cecil’s hair and tugging him away gently, grabbing the washcloth from the previous night and smoothing it over Cecil’s stomach as the writer stood under the water, eyes closed and head tipped back as Carlos cleaned him, slow and methodical.

“Okay, we should get dressed.” Carlos murmured, turning the water off and smirking as Cecil whined and pouted at him. “You do want to get breakfast, right?” Carlos hummed as Cecil nodded, leading the writer out of the shower and wrapping a towel around his shoulders so he could dry himself. Carlos took the other towel, ruffling it over his hair before wiping down his arms and shoulders, wrapping it around his waist and shuffling out of the bathroom to inspect the outfit Cecil had chosen for him.

A pale purple shirt and the same navy blue suit pants and jacket Carlos had worn the previous night, somehow salvaged from the wrinkles of being left on the floor overnight, were laid out for Carlos, as well as a clean pair of socks and underwear, which Carlos tugged on after giving a rough wipe down of his legs. Cecil entered the bedroom, towel around his waist as he beelined to his wardrobe, as Carlos was tucking the shirt into his pants.

“I realised that none of my suits would really fit you,” Cecil called, voice muffled slightly as he bent over to pull on underwear, back turned to Carlos and letting the scientist’s eyes linger on the curve of Cecil’s ass as he straightened. “So I did what I could to salvage your suit from last night. It should be decent enough to get to your apartment with no questions.” Cecil grunted gently, hopping on one leg as he tried to pull on his own pants, a deep eggplant colour with a faint plaid pattern in it.

“Thank you, Cecil.” Carlos said, rolling the too-long sleeves of his loaned shirt up to his elbows.

Cecil turned to Carlos with a broad grin, fastening his pants with a teasing wink as he strolled over towards Carlos, reaching his hand out to cup the scientist’s cheeks and pull him into a lingering kiss.

“You should keep that shirt,” Cecil hummed as they parted, tugging at the loose collar with a soft giggle. “It looks good on you.”

Carlos raised an eyebrow and smirked gently. “Really? I might just do that then.”

Cecil gave a breathy sigh and swept down to kiss Carlos again. “I’ve decided,” Cecil paused, pressed a kiss to the corner of Carlos’ lips and jaw before continuing, “that I like the look of you in my clothes.” Carlos hummed softly, not agreeing or disagreeing, just acknowledging as he placed his hands on Cecil’s hips. “Maybe I should have picked out one of my suits for you after all.”

“Maybe,” Carlos murmured, his lips brushing Cecil’s as he tugged at the writer’s hips gently. “You should get dressed.” Carlos raised his eyebrows pointedly as he pulled away, a teasing smirk dancing around his lips. “Otherwise it’ll be too late to call it breakfast.”

Cecil huffed and rolled his eyes but strutted off, an extra swing in his hips as he went to track down the rest of his suit. “Fine. If you say so, dearest Carlos.” Cecil sighed dramatically.

“I might run down quickly and get a head start on feeding Khoshekh.” Carlos said, sliding his feet into his shoes and tying the laces quickly. “You know where my apartment is?” He asked, creeping in behind Cecil and trailing his fingers up the writer’s back as he buttoned up his shirt.

“No, I don’t believe I do.” Cecil hummed, turning to face Carlos as he did up the last few buttons.

“Oh, well, it’s number 151. Pretty much straight down the hall from the elevator.” Carlos grinned, pulling Cecil down for a final quick kiss before he scooped up his jacket and darted out of the bedroom and down the hall, leaving the apartment and jogging slowly towards the elevator.

In the elevator Carlos went to check the time, only to remember with a start that he’d never put his watch back on when he was getting ready to meet Cecil in the first place. Carlos grimaced as he waited out the elevator ride, tapping his foot impatiently until the doors slid open, freeing him to stroll down the hall and unlock his apartment, getting hit in the chest immediately by Khoshekh as the cat rubbed himself all over Carlos, purring loudly as the scientist pushed inside with a fond sigh.

“All right, all right, I get it, you missed me.” Carlos laughed, putting his arms out so the cat could drop into them and be held. “You hungry Khoshekh?” Carlos asked, rolling his eyes as Khoshekh mewled at him angrily. “Who am I kidding, of course you are. Come on, let’s get you some food.”

Carlos carried the cat through into the kitchen, setting him on the bench so he could open the fridge and get out the last of the spleens, upending the bag into Khoshekh’s dish and throwing the empty plastic into the bin on his way past.

Carlos walked backwards down his hall in an attempt to read his clock on the way, sighing in relief when he saw he still had two hours until he absolutely _needed_ to be at work, though he was likely to get questions about not being in early as usual. Either way there was plenty of time to get changed and have breakfast with Cecil.

“Oh, Khoshekh!” Carlos called, leaning out of his bedroom and waiting for a noise from the Chimaera before continuing. “We’ll have a visitor soon so you’ll have to behave. He won’t be around for long, we’ll be going out for breakfast.” Carlos finished, waiting for an acknowledging yowl before ducking into his wardrobe and changing clothes, setting Cecil’s shirt aside to be put back on as he browsed his suits.

Carlos had chosen a pair of light grey plaid pants, and was halfway through tugging them on when he heard a knock on the door, the sound startling him and making him stumble slightly.

“It should be unlocked!” He shouted towards the door, tugging his pants up and fumbling with the fly as he heard the door slide open and a startled noise from Khoshekh, followed by the cat streaking his way through the air to curl around Carlos’ bare shoulders. “Khoshekh, it’s okay.” Carlos hushed, calling back towards the door, “through here, Cecil!”

Carlos huffed and pulled an irritated Khoshekh from his shoulders, watching the cat float up to hide amongst some of Carlos’ thicker sweaters, stored since the temperature was regulated in Rapture, as he shrugged Cecil’s shirt on, fastening the buttons quickly and straightening out the collar.

“Hey, Cecil. Sorry about Khoshekh.” Carlos said as Cecil rounded the corner, leaning against the wardrobe doorway and raising an eyebrow at the tucked away Chimaera.

“It’s okay, I probably startled him is all. No worries.” Cecil said with a grin, reaching out to tug a bit of fur from Carlos’ shoulder. “But we should be heading soon. It’s not too long until you have to be at work, dear Carlos.” Cecil said, leaning in to press a kiss to the scientist’s temple before he sashayed out of the bedroom area. “There’s a lovely little place in Arcadia I’ve been meaning to visit, if you don’t mind.” He called over his shoulder, glancing backwards as Carlos left his wardrobe, a lab coat hanging over one shoulder and his shoes clasped in the opposite hand.

“That sounds wonderful.” Carlos said, perching on the edge of his couch to pull his shoes on again, humming softly as Cecil slowly paced the room, sighing to himself at the lack of personal decoration.

“Did you not bring much with you here?” Cecil asked softly, dragging his fingers through the dust on an empty bookshelf.

“What?” Carlos asked, head jerking up to look at Cecil. “No, I brought plenty. All my notebooks for starters, my clothes. Some other, ahem, more _personal_ books,” Carlos said, cheeks flushing as he put the finishing touches on his laces. “Nothing worth displaying though.” He added with a tight smile, tugging on his lab coat and double checking he had his keys and wallet and… “Oh, my watch! I’ll be just a moment, Cecil.” Carlos said, bustling through to his bathroom and snagging his watch from the counter where he’d left it the previous night, fastening it around his wrist as he called out to Khoshekh on his way past the wardrobe. “Take care Khoshekh, I’ll see you this evening.”

When he reached the living room again, Cecil was standing by the doorway, an arm extended towards Carlos. “Shall we, darling Carlos?” He asked, bowing slightly with a mirthful smile playing across his face.

“Of course, Cecil.” Carlos bowed too, grinning as he took Cecil’s arm and led him out the door and towards the Bathysphere station.

The Bathysphere trip was quiet, most people in the Heights still in their early morning routines and not yet on their way to work, so Cecil and Carlos had the Bathysphere to themselves all the way to Rapture Central, spending the trip sitting in companionable silence, the occasional foot tap or brush of hands all they needed to be comfortable.

While they waited for their exchange from Rapture Central, standing in line for the Arcadia Bathysphere, they were approached by a rough-looking man, well-muscled and dressed for work in Hephaestus, his face full of worry and trepidation as he reached Carlos and Cecil.

“Doctor Ramirez,” he started, reaching a hand out to grab Carlos’, shaking gently and ignoring Cecil’s noise of protest while the scientist stared, trying to work out why the man seemed familiar. “I don’t know that you’ll remember me, it’s gotta be close on six years since you got here, but I need your help, please.”

“Steve Carlsberg!” Carlos gasped suddenly, recognition slotting into place and making a small smile slip onto his face. “What do you need help with?”

“Well, Doctor, I’ve heard you’re working with the little girls, the- the sisters?” Steve asked, dropping his voice down and glancing around surreptitiously as he wrung his hands together nervously.

“What on _Earth_ could that have to do with you?” Cecil asked incredulously, gaping at Steve and cocking a hip, unimpressed with the conversation.

“Cecil, please. Let him speak.” Carlos said softly, placing a hand on Cecil’s back as the writer huffed and leaned into the touch. “Yes, I am part of the project, more on the Big Daddy side though. What’s the problem?” Carlos asked, keeping his voice low to match Steve’s and turning slightly inwards, making their conversation a little more private.

“My little girl, Janice. She- Well, we couldn’t afford to, she can’t walk you see, in a chair that lets her get around but the repairs when she needs them are too much, my wife and I, we couldn’t afford it.” Steve stopped, choking a little on his words and wiping at his eyes. “We put her into one of Fontaine’s orphanages, the Little Sister ones. My wife, she thought it would be best for Janice, she doesn’t hear the things I do. I, well, in Hephaestus, people talk you know? About what they do in the orphanages, to the little girls.”

Carlos stiffened slightly, wary of him, or Cecil, being put in danger because of the knowledge Steve might have. “What do they say?” Carlos asked lowly, voice dangerous and eyes scanning the crowds for threats.

“Nothing that they’ll take to action, I promise you Doctor,” Steve assured quickly, hands raised defensively as he spoke. “Half of them don’t believe it anyway, I just… I _know_. That they’re true.” Steve swallowed loudly, beckoning Carlos in closer. “I know about the slugs and the ADAM and that you need the girls for it. And with the way things are going around here I understand the need for ADAM.”

“So what’s the problem with... Janice? Was it? Being in the orphanage then?” Cecil huffed, rolling his eyes and either ignoring or not noticing Carlos’ low growl. “If you know that they’re doing good work.”

“Cecil, please,” Carlos sighed, squeezing Cecil’s hip forcefully and turning his attention back to Steve. “I’m sorry, but…” Carlos sighed again, shaking his head slowly. “He has a good point. If you agree we need the Sisters, need the ADAM, then what’s the problem with Janice being in there?”

“The problem is her legs, it either makes her a waste of their time and space or a prime research subject. And I would rather her be neither.” Steve sobbed softly, grabbing for Carlos’ arm and fixing the scientist with a watery glare. “I need you to make sure she gets cared for properly, but not turned into one of those Sisters. Please, Doctor Ramirez.”

Carlos froze, thinking of all the frankly fascinating experiments that could come from planting a slug in little Janice. Would it let her walk? Fix whatever was broken and make her whole again? It would be wondrous to see it happen, if it could.

“What makes you think Carlos could do anything about it?” Cecil said, speaking up when Carlos didn’t. “Not to belittle your benefits to the team, dearest Carlos, but you said it yourself, you mostly work with the Daddies, not the Sisters. He’s not a project leader, _Steve_.” Cecil sneered, wrapping a protective arm around Carlos.

“Cecil, Christ. He’s right, Steve,” Carlos patted Steve’s hand, still gripping the sleeve of Carlos’ lab coat. “I’ll do what I can to protect her, but I can’t make any promises.”

Steve sighed heavily, nodding his head slowly. “That’s all I can ask, thank you Doctor Ramirez.”

Carlos hummed softly as he watched Steve bustle away, weaving through the crowd towards the Hephaestus line, his mind flitting from idea to idea and fingers itching for a notebook and pen that he didn’t have.

“Carlos,” Cecil said, tugging on the sleeve of Carlos’ lab coat and startling the scientist from his thoughts. “The Bathysphere is here, we still have time for breakfast if we get on this one.”

Carlos nodded absently, mind still on potential experiments as he let Cecil lead him into the Bathysphere, significantly fuller than the one from Olympus Heights, to the point where Carlos and Cecil were pressed together from shoulder to hip, the writer’s body a solid line of warmth as Carlos’ mind wandered, chewing on his lip as he formed a pitch for Tenenbaum in his mind.

“What are you going to do about that guy’s kid?” Cecil asked, voice low in Carlos’ ear and making him shudder slightly.

“What I can.” Carlos said simply, not wanting to say too much in the full Bathysphere. “I’ll tell you over breakfast, okay?” He offered instead, turning to press a kiss to Cecil’s cheek, smiling gently as the writer’s hands snaked around his waist.

“Sounds like a plan. I had, uh, something I wanted to talk to you about too, over breakfast that is.” Cecil admitted, ducking his head to hide the flush creeping up his cheeks as he spoke softly.

“What is it?” Carlos asked, his curiosity getting the better of him as he reached up to angle Cecil’s face so he was making eye contact.

Cecil evaded eye contact as long as he could, lowering his eyes to Carlos’ lips and chin and fighting the scientist’s grip on his chin until Carlos growled softly, sliding his hand up further to cup Cecil’s cheek.

“I just,” Cecil sighed, blowing his fringe out of his face and leaning down to whisper in Carlos’ ear. “I wonder what this is, to you. I know what it is, what I _want it to be_ , but I don’t know what you think.”

Carlos stiffened slightly, unsure suddenly as Cecil pressed his lips to Carlos’ jaw, humming softly and rubbing gentle circles against the scientist’s back.

“You don’t have to say anything just now, that’s okay. Just, think on it maybe?” Cecil said softly, straightening and pulling away from Carlos to ride out the rest of the Bathysphere trip as separate beings.

“Oh,” Carlos said softly, turning away from Cecil again and trying to make sense of the whirl in his head, the mix of work thoughts and personal thoughts.

The Bathysphere came to a jolting stop, the passengers starting to filter out and Carlos, still thinking hard on what Cecil had said and weighing the pros and cons of any decision, letting Cecil lead him out, a hand around his waist as the writer led Carlos through the roads of Arcadia, past the little market stalls and stores and the doors to the winery.

“It’s so lovely here, you know? Maybe we could get a pastry and walk through the gardens while we eat?” Cecil offered, smiling at Carlos, gentle and awkward, like he wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the scientist right now.

“That sounds like a perfect idea, Cecil.” Carlos said, pushing all his thoughts aside and smiling at the writer, taking his hand and leading him over to the first stall he saw selling pastries.

Carlos bought each of them a few small pastries, paying the cashier and giving them a grateful smile before hooking his arm through Cecil’s and leading the writer through to the glass walkway that led across to the proper gardens. They walked through the walkway quickly, neither man taking time to enjoy the seascape outside as schools of fish darted by the glass, too focussed on each other and the impending, likely awkward, conversation.

The gardens were lush and green, trees with thick foliage and mossy rocks lining small streams and waterfalls that kicked a rich earthy scent into the air, a smell that Carlos drank down greedily, having missed it since leaving the surface.

They walked mostly in silence, eating quietly and following the paths through the gardens, past Arcadia Glens, towards the Rolling Hills, arms still linked as they took in the surprising greenery.

“Isn’t it magical?” Cecil breathed, pulling them to a stop beside a rose bush in bloom, leaning in to smell the flowers.

“It’s a scientific wonder, at least,” Carlos agreed softly, mind still half on what Cecil had said in the Bathysphere and mulling over the possible answers he could give. “Hey, Cecil,” he started, only to be interrupted by the writer.

“I wouldn’t have said anything,” Cecil said softly, cheeks flushing slightly as he focussed his gaze on one barely-open rose. “I really like you though? Maybe, uh, maybe even love you?” Cecil paused to clear his throat as Carlos looked away, flushing. “But it doesn’t seem like you necessarily want the same things.” Cecil sighed, catching Carlos’ chin and making the scientist look at him as he finished. “I just want to know where you stand, so I don’t get my hopes up for something more than will ever happen.”

Carlos sighed, flicking his eyes away from Cecil’s and chewing on his lower lip. “Cecil, I-”

Cecil let go of Carlos’ chin, looking away and ducking his head to hide his discouraged expression. Carlos reached a hand out and hesitated, unsure how to comfort the writer.

“Cecil, I’m not-” Carlos faltered, placing a hesitant hand on Cecil’s shoulder. “I don’t know, I’m not very good at… this.” Carlos sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, tugging it out of his face as he stepped around in front of Cecil, placing his hands on the writer’s hips. “I’m not good at this, but I’d be willing to try for you?”

Cecil shivered gently, leaning into Carlos’ touch and smiling hesitantly. “You will?”

“Yeah, I will Cecil.” Carlos hushed, reaching up to cup Cecil’s cheeks and pulling the writer down for a gentle kiss, lips pressing and searching and passing wordless feelings between them before they parted with a soft sigh. “I, uh, I’m sorry Cecil, I should be getting to work.”

“It’s okay, dearest Carlos.” Cecil said, grinning and pulling Carlos in for another short kiss. “Can I see you tonight?”

“How about you come over for dinner?” Carlos asked, disentangling himself from Cecil’s arms. “At 7?”

“Perfect. It’s a date.” Cecil beamed, waving as Carlos rushed off towards the Bathysphere station, his lab coat billowing out behind him.

Carlos jittered through the Bathysphere trip towards Fontaine Futuristics, nervous both about dinner that night and his ideas for Janice, and hopes that Tenenbaum would be on board with them. He pushed his way through the disembarking passengers when they weren’t moving fast enough for him, all but running through the halls towards the Little Wonders facility, where Tenenbaum was based.

Carlos spent the day going back and forth through the Little Wonders facility, always seeming to be in a state of either finishing talking to Tenenbaum or on his way to talk to Tenenbaum. The second he had pitched his idea to her she was ready to get on board, sending Carlos off to meet with the girl and take notes on her condition while she went to see where the harvest team was at on slug numbers, and how soon they could implant one in Janice.

By the time Carlos was ready to leave work he was physically exhausted, even though his mind was still buzzing with ideas as he rode the Bathysphere towards the Medical Pavilion to get more food for Khoshekh, scrawling down ideas about what equipment he would need and what measurements he wanted to take along the way. As he was stepping off the Bathysphere Carlos prioritised his list, topping it with lab assistants and ending it with a private room away from the other orphanage dorms for Janice. Carlos walked through the hallways, making his way towards the general surgery ward where he’d pick up whatever organs they’d removed from patients that week, and head still caught around Janice. The little girl hadn’t ever been able to walk and her legs were underdeveloped as a result, an occurrence that was concerning and made Carlos wonder whether she’d be able to walk, even with ADAM thrumming through her veins.

Carlos was so distracted with his work that he nearly walked straight into a man, barely catching himself with an apology and an arm out to steady the man before he looked up and gasped in recognition.

“Carlos! How’ve you been? How’s the Gatherer project treating you?” The man, Dave, asked, clapping a hand against Carlos’ forearm and grinning.

“Dave, it’s been good, we just got this new girl in the orphanage, very promising for ADAM research.” Carlos smiled easily, wrapping an arm around Dave’s shoulders and bringing him along to collect the organs for Khoshekh. “How’s your work been going? Get the proton ray working yet?”

“No, not yet unfortunately,” Dave sighed, shaking his head slowly. “These newest interns, they’re just not cutting it. One accidentally cut her hand off with my laser the other day? Funnily enough they’re only really useful when your Cloud is controlling them.”

Carlos blinked at Dave incredulously. “My Cloud? It’s still around?”

“Sure is. Been evolving too, now it can actually control all the limbs with a certain degree of fine motor control, can talk more beyond just that ‘all hail’ stuff too. It’s been asking after you, you know.” Dave grinned, leaning on the service desk as they arrived, Carlos ringing the bell and turning to face the other scientist.

“That’s fascinating. Can I come by and look at it for myself?” Carlos asked, nodding at the nurse that came in and turned away when she saw him, all the staff knowing why he was visiting by now.

“How about you come by when you’re done here? It’s still early,” Dave said, pausing to check his watch. “Yeah, 6:30, more or less, the interns will still be there.”

Carlos paused, chewing on his lip slowly as he thought. “I… Only briefly. I do need to be getting home before it gets too late.” Carlos chuckled, turning back to the hospital staff and taking the large plastic bag of kidneys offered to him, each of them dark and swollen, slowly oozing and looking utterly disgusting.

“Of course, of course, just a quick stop to check on the Cloud. Won’t even take five minutes.” Dave said, nodding to the nurse  as he turned Carlos around with a hand on his shoulder and led him towards the elevator to take them down to the labs. “Let me tell you, it has been quiet without you and Rochelle around. Some others came in and took your spaces but it’s just not the same you know?” Dave said as they stood in the elevator, arm still around Carlos’ shoulder and hand squeezing the joint like he was afraid Carlos would run.

“I understand. To an extent it’s been much the same with me. The people I’ve been working with are much less… friendly. More likely to work hard and glare than hum a tune along with me.” Carlos chuckled softly, letting Dave guide him out of the elevator and down the familiar halls to the lab, stepping through the doors and leaving the changes to wash over Carlos.

The room itself was much the same, just the contents were different. For starters there were more people in the room, two other scientists with 2 interns following them around each, as well as the two standing in Dave’s corner, clearly waiting for him to return. As well as the number of people, there were different handwritings covering the chalkboards that once held Carlos’ own as well as Rochelle’s, different notes spread across the benches, and all of Rochelle’s creature cages had been carelessly tossed into the back corner of the room, stacked haphazardly and some of them looking dented.

One of the intern’s from Dave’s area approached Carlos, a wide grin on their face as they drifted, almost dreamily, towards Carlos.

“Doctor Ramirez.” They greeted when they reached the scientists, holding a hand out to shake his hand.

“I’m sorry, I don’t recognise you?” Carlos said uncertainly, pointedly not shaking their hand.

“Oh, forgive me.” The intern grinned, wider if possible, and then their eyes went glassy, head drooping as a gently glowing blue cloud materialised out of their head, floating away from the intern to dance circles around Carlos.

“Oh my-” Carlos said, watching wide-eyed as the cloud settled itself back into the intern. “That’s entirely beyond what I thought you could do.” He murmured, reaching out and pressing a tentative pair of fingers to the intern’s temple. “How long has it been able to do that?” He asked, turning to face Dave.

“Oh about, three months ago? Give or take.” Dave hummed, grinning at Carlos. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Wow.” Carlos breathed. “Can I? That is, would you mind if I took it? To the Gatherer project? I’m going to need lab assistants and this would be, well frankly perfect.” Carlos blurted, turning to Dave wide-eyed and eager.

“Well it is your project so realistically you can do whatever you want with it. It will be missed around here, but we’ll manage if you want it.” Dave answered, tucking his hands into his lab coat pockets.

“Would you like to?” Carlos said, turning to face the Cloud-possessed intern. “Come work with me, that is.”

“Yes. If you’ll take me.” The Cloud grinned, bouncing on their heels. “When can I start?”

“How about tomorrow morning? Meet me outside the Little Wonders facility, over in Point Prometheus? I’ll get an ID card and all the relevant permissions arranged.” Carlos grinned, bouncing on his heels a little himself. “I really should be going.” He sighed, glancing at his watch and startling at the 6:45 it showed him. “Khoshekh will be whining for food. It was a pleasure to catch up though, and yes, meet me tomorrow, I’ll fill you in on all the details then.” Carlos darted out of the lab, hefting the bag of kidneys along with him and waving over his shoulder as he all but sprinted towards the Bathysphere, waiting impatiently in the elevator and in line for the next ‘Sphere towards Central.

When the Rapture Central Bathysphere arrived, Carlos was able to grab a seat, setting the bag of kidneys between his feet and pulling out his notebook to start a new list of things he’d need for the Cloud-Intern. The list didn’t take long to complete and Carlos spent the rest of the trip to Rapture Central humming softly to himself, trying to turn his work brain off so he could enjoy a quiet night at home, maybe reading or listening to one of the records that had come with his apartment.

The rapture central station was bustling with energy, most people arriving and passing through onto Fort Frolic and all the entertainment options it offered, but with a few people, mostly medical professionals or engineers from Hephaestus, heading home for the night.

The Bathysphere to Olympus Heights was waiting for passengers when Carlos stepped out of the Medical Pavilion one, allowing him to make his way over and sit down, only one other person joining him, a man also in a lab coat, but one streaked in blood. Carlos let his eyes slide shut as the Bathysphere jolted into motion, sighing as some of the tension in his shoulders was released as he rolled them. The Bathysphere was silent apart from the breaths of both Carlos and the other passenger, and the movement of water outside, and while it wasn’t exactly a comfortable silence it wasn’t one Carlos was willing to try and break either, the scientist really just looking forward to curling up on his couch, maybe with Frankenstein and a glass of wine, especially considering the Arcadia wine he’d had basically since he arrived should finally be decent enough to drink.

The Bathysphere arrived in Olympus Heights with a slight gurgle as the water poured off it, the door hissing open and Carlos letting the other man aboard leave before him, using the time to pick the bag of kidneys up again, wrapping his arm around it and cradling it to his side as he got out and left the station, passing through the lobby and rounding the elevator to trudge down his hallway, only to freeze half-way down the hall as a frustrated Cecil approached him, frown on his face and hands on his hips.

“Carlos, you were supposed to be here at 7! Do you know what time it is right now?” Cecil asked, descending on Carlos with a quickly fading anger as he scooped the kidneys out of Carlos’ arms and pressed a kiss to the scientist’s temple.

“I’m sorry Cecil, I got caught up at work and then I had to get Khoshekh’s dinner.” Carlos apologised, gesturing to the bag of kidneys in Cecil’s arms as he spoke.

“I did wonder about these.” Cecil sighed, shoulders slumping slightly. “It’s okay, I suppose. If you want I can cook while you shower, I’m sure you’ll appreciate that after a long day.”

Carlos chuckled nervously as he pulled his key from his pocket, unlocking his door and catching Khoshekh as the cat made a break for freedom. “About that… I don’t exactly have much in the way of human-worthy food here.”

Carlos heard the door slide shut and let Khoshekh go, watching as the Chimaera floated away, grumbling, towards the kitchen.

“You what?” Cecil sighed, making Carlos turn with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t eat here often, I’m either at work or asleep really. I mostly eat at work in the break room.” Carlos shrugged, taking the bag of kidneys from Cecil and following Khoshekh through to the kitchen while Cecil gaped at him.

“How on Earth do you survive? How do you eat dinner? _What_ do you eat for dinner?” Cecil asked rapidly, trailing behind Carlos and watching as he pulled out a knife and chopping board, tipping a handful of the kidneys onto the board and cutting them in half neatly, shooing Khoshekh away when the cat tried to investigate.

“I don’t usually eat dinner. I’m so tired by the time I get home I pretty much feed Khoshekh, have a bath and go to bed.” Carlos shrugged, dropping a half kidney and a full kidney into Khoshekh’s food dish, scooping the other half kidneys back into the bag with the whole ones.

“ _Carlos you’re a scientist you should know better!_ ” Cecil gasped, watching in disbelief as Carlos washed his hands, the knife and the chopping board before leaving the latter two sitting in the sink as he rolled the top of the bag over its contents and tucked it away into the fridge.

“I have big breakfasts and lunches,” Carlos said, the shrug evident in his tone of voice even though he didn’t do the action. “But I am sorry I don’t have food now. I would cook for you if I did.” He added, leaning on the bench and placing his hand over Cecil’s with an apologetic hum.

“Wellllll,” Cecil sighed, rounding the bench slowly to put his hands on Carlos’ hips. “I do have leftovers in my fridge if you want me to bring those down?” Cecil offered, smirking down at Carlos.

“Honestly Cecil that would be fantastic.” Carlos murmured, pushing upwards to kiss Cecil gently, a soft smile spreading across the writer’s face as he leaned into the kiss. “I’m really sorry I ruined this.” Carlos said when he broke the kiss, sighing softly and pressing his palms to Cecil’s hips. “You should let me make it up to you, before you go get the food.” Carlos continued, a wicked grin creeping across his face as his hands trailed along to the writer’s waistband and started undoing his belt buckle.

“O-oh Carlos, that’s not-” Cecil started, ending up moaning loudly as Carlos worked his hand under Cecil’s pants and started stroking his dick to hardness, his other hand fumbling at Cecil’s fly until he was able to shove the writer’s pants down and sink to his knees to take the head of Cecil’s cock into his mouth, moaning softly as he lapped at the soft skin. “C-Carlos Oh gods, _Carlos_.” Cecil moaned, hands winding into Carlos’ hair as his hips jolted forwards.

Carlos hummed softly, his eyes sliding shut as he took more of Cecil’s dick into his mouth, working his tongue around the shaft where he could and giving a gentle swipe of his teeth where he couldn’t. Carlos pressed forwards, swallowing around Cecil’s cock until his nose was pressed against Cecil’s hips, only moving as the writer tugged on Carlos’ curls, pulling the scientist off his dick with a groan before he pushed forwards again, swallowing Cecil down again with hands coming up to squeeze at his thighs.

Cecil shuddered, moaning loudly as Carlos’ hands dragged upwards, his nails leaving red lines along Cecil’s thighs as he reached around to knead at the writer’s ass, humming softly as he babbled along, mixtures of curses and Carlos’ name as his legs shook and his breath came in stuttered gasps.

“Christ, Carlos, I’m gonna- If you don’t- _oh gods_.” Cecil groaned, hands knotting into Carlos’ hair further as the scientist blinked up at him, winking and nodding his permission before Cecil came, all but howling Carlos’ name as the scientist grinned and swallowed down Cecil’s seed.

“Thank you for being able to save dinner,” Carlos grinned, voice rough as he stood, pulling Cecil’s pants and underwear up with him and fastening the writer’s fly and belt while he panted.

“It’s, uh, my pleasure?” Cecil said uncertainly, reaching out to tuck one of Carlos’ curls behind his ear as the scientist grinned, pressing upwards and brushing his lips against Cecil’s.

“Now, I’m going to go shower and you should go get those left overs.” Carlos smirked, stepping away from Cecil and leaving the kitchen.

“You don’t want me to join you?” Cecil called, watching Carlos’ back retreating down the hallway.

“Not this time honey.” Carlos replied, shrugging off his lab coat and dropping it in the middle of the hallway with a wink.

Carlos showered quickly, barely taking the time to let the water heat up before he was scrubbing at his body, shuddering pleasantly as he felt himself getting cleaner with every pass of his washcloth over his body, and yet by the time he was out Cecil was already back and halfway through heating up his leftovers, some kind of fragrant curry. Carlos padded through to the kitchen, dressed in a loose t-shirt and a pair of soft sleep pants as he pressed himself to Cecil’s back, rocking his hips forwards gently and grinning wolfishly at Cecil’s noise of surprise as he sniffed at the food.

“Smells good, Ceec.” Carlos murmured, pressing his lips to the junction of Cecil’s shoulder and neck before slapping the writer’s hip playfully and shuffling away, flopping onto the couch and letting his head hang over the armrest to watch Cecil in the kitchen.

“How was your day, darling Carlos?” Cecil asked, filling a glass of water and pouring it into the pot on the stove, his cheeks flushing under Carlos’ scrutiny.

“Oh, you know.” Carlos sighed, waving his hand dismissively. “Meetings all day really, just planning.”

“It all sounds fascinating, and it’s important work you’re doing.” Cecil hummed, turning the heat down on the stove top and stepping over towards Carlos to drag gentle fingers through the scientist’s damp curls.

“Yes well, more important to some than others. Like Fontaine.” Carlos scoffed, shifting his position a little so his head was closer to Cecil’s hands.

Cecil hummed softly, tugging at a stubborn knot before separating Carlos’ hair into three clumps and starting to braid them together. “Important to all of Rapture, by this point.” He said softly, smoothing his hand over Carlos’ braid before letting it go, watching the tense knots loosen slightly but not come apart.

Carlos sighed heavily, grabbing Cecil’s hand on his way past back to the kitchen and pressing a kiss to the writer’s palm. “You’re right, absolutely.” Carlos smiled softly, releasing Cecil’s hand and letting him go back to the food. “My work wouldn’t have happened without… well everything I’m doing now.” Carlos huffed gently, waving his hands vaguely as he spoke. “Khoshekh wouldn’t be here.” Cecil reached out an absentminded hand to stroke over the Chimaera’s head as he responded to his name, looking up from his position curled on the bench. “By the way he’s technically not allowed on the bench. I’ve been trying to train him some but it’s not really working. I’m not here enough.” Carlos continued, changing position to be sitting up as Cecil pulled the pot off the stove and started dividing the food into two bowls.

“I could train him. I have a lot of downtime.” Cecil offered, looking up with a soft smile and nearly spilling the food in the meanwhile.

“Ceec-” Carlos started, cutting the warning off when the writer noticed the near spill and caught it. “Would you really?”

“I would. I’d love to.” Cecil nodded, keeping his eyes on the food until he’d poured the last of it into the second bowl. “Would you rather give me a key for here? Or I can get a cage, take him up to my apartment.” Cecil continued, pulling two forks from a drawer and bringing the bowls down to sit next to Carlos and eat, the scientist’s feet kicked up across Cecil’s lap.

“I could give you a key for here. I have a spare after all…” Carlos said, shrugging and digging into his food with an appreciative moan, eyes squeezing shut and missing Cecil’s wondrous expression. “This is really good,” Carlos groaned, shovelling more food into his mouth quickly.

“I just reheated it Carlos,” Cecil chuckled, digging into his own food, more slowly than Carlos.

“Still good,” Carlos countered, voice muffled by the food in his mouth. Cecil rolled his eyes fondly, letting the conversation lapse as he ate, silently categorising every noise of appreciation Carlos made.

The rest of the night passed similarly, soft noises, quiet words and desperate, hungry movements before they fell asleep, curled against each other and with satisfied smiles on their faces.

oOo

The months leading up to the implantation of the slug into Janice passed quickly, Carlos focussed mainly on physiotherapy treatments for Janice, consisting of mainly muscular workouts to try and get her legs closer to working order, leaving less for the ADAM and the slug to repair.

In the times he wasn’t working with Janice, Carlos was back in the Big Daddy labs, helping refine the process and churn out perfect Big Daddies more frequently until they had one between every three Little Sisters.

In the times when he wasn’t at work, Carlos was at home, Cecil there with him most nights, practically living there between the time he spent training Khoshekh and trying to make sure Carlos was eating properly. Not to say that he didn’t appreciate it, but sometimes Carlos longed for the days where he’d come home and feed Khoshekh before falling straight into bed, not having to worry about making small talk or explaining the finer intricacies of his job to Cecil. But the benefits outweighed the disadvantages, between getting a proper feed every night and having company in his bed, Carlos was a lot better off these days than he had been previously.

They were nearing the implantation date for Janice, the little girl undergoing the early stages of mental conditioning, when Steve next approached Carlos, catching him on his way to work and thanking him profusely for taking care of Janice so far, pressing a small box of cigarettes, an expensive brand that was rarely seen outside of Olympus Heights and Mercury Suites, into Carlos’ palm before the engineer slunk away towards the Hephaestus Bathysphere. Carlos pondered the gift on the Bathysphere to Point Prometheus, turning the carton over in his hand and tapping one of the sticks out gently before pushing it away again and tucking the box into his pocket.

It was curious, but not beyond unusual for Steve to have a pack, he could have saved up for it as a gift, but it was an interesting choice, especially since Carlos didn’t smoke at all. Carlos shrugged it off as the Bathysphere arrived at Point Prometheus, stepping out of the ‘Sphere and nodding hello to the security staff as he headed in towards the Little Wonders Educations facility, making his way through the halls and up a staircase until he was in position to look into Janice’s room, checking in on her mental conditioning, currently in the form of sound tapes being played while she slept.

As he stood there watching, Doctor Tenenbaum entered the room, her heels clicking softly on the tile in time with the heels of a woman following her, both nodding to Carlos in acknowledgement and stepping over to peer into Janice’s room before speaking.

“Doctor Ramirez,” Tenenbaum started, extending a respectful hand to shake, which Carlos took slowly, giving a single firm shake before dropping it with a nod.

“Doctor Tenenbaum,” Carlos turned to the other person in the room, extending his hand and raising an eyebrow in silent question.

“Doctor Sophia Lamb,” The woman said, lacquered red lips parting in a grin as she shook Carlos’ hand enthusiastically. “I’ve heard a lot about your ideas for this girl. I’m looking forward to being involved.”

Carlos hummed softly, taking his hand back from Lamb’s and leaning against the glass window. “What exactly will you be doing?” He asked, turning to face the women. “No offence meant! I just wasn’t aware you’d be working with us.” Carlos blurted, fixing Tenenbaum with a discrete look as Lamb laughed delicately and shook her head, blonde curls bouncing against her cheekbones.

“Well, Doctor Ramirez. I’m a psychologist, mainly working with the Hephaestus workers.” Lamb said, hand on her hip and cryptic smile playing around her lips. “Which means-”

“You know all of Steve Carlsberg’s fears and insecurities.” Carlos finished, nodding slowly. “That will be handy. I’m going to hazard a guess that most of them are based around family?”

“Absolutely. _Especially_ around Janice.” Lamb added smugly, lips stretching into a smirk.

Carlos chewed his lip slowly, mulling over the new information presented to him. “Tenenbaum,” he said, turning sharply to look at the other doctor. “How quickly can we implant in her?” Carlos asked, corner of his lips twitching up into a smile as he pressed his palm to the glass overlooking Janice’s room.

Tenenbaum hummed softly, her fingers twitching slightly as she did some mental maths before turning and grinning at Carlos. “If we start preparations immediately we can do it by the end of the day.”

“ _Perfect.”_ Carlos grinned, streaming out of the observation room towards the surgery rooms, pushing the doors into the lobby open with a clatter and speaking to the room at large. “Who is closest to being ready to operate? We have a priority implantation.”

oOo

Carlos trudged home that night, the halls of the Little Wonders long since empty apart from him, bloodstains across his lab coat and up around his wrists as he slumped into the Bathysphere, flopping into a seat and yawning as the door slid shut. The implantation had been a success, the slug fitting nicely against the lining of Janice’s stomach and settling in without a complaint, unlike some of the implantations the doctor Carlos had been working with had done.

The Bathysphere jerked to a stop and Carlos jolted awake, having drifted into a doze on the ride, and he stumbled upright, stepping out of the Bathysphere and crossing to the Olympus Heights line, nearly tripping over the threshold into the vehicle and sliding down into a pool by the door as it started moving, the gentle, and by now well-familiar rhythms of ocean currents, lulling Carlos off to sleep against the metal.

When Carlos woke it was to Cecil, dressed in one of his lab coats and a pair of sleep pants, scooping him up with a huff.

“Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.” Cecil sighed, shaking his head at the bleary Carlos. “You are very _very_ late you know? Had me worried.”

Carlos mumbled an apology and pressed his face against Cecil’s shoulder, pressing a kiss to the thick white cotton of the writer’s borrowed lab coat.

“Carlos, darling, you need to work less. You tire yourself out like this otherwise.” Cecil said softly, pressing a kiss to Carlos’ forehead and fumbling the scientist’s apartment door open. “What would you have done if I wasn’t waiting for you?” Cecil hummed, rolling his eyes as Khoshekh flowed over to sniff at the pair, settling himself on Carlos’ stomach as Cecil carried the writer towards the bathroom. “Maybe you should move in with me, or I with you. Make sure this doesn’t happen again.” Cecil murmured, more to himself than Carlos as he set the scientist on his feet, cupping Carlos’ arms under Khoshekh before he stepped away to start running the bath.

“Sounds good Cecil. Should start tomorrow. Got the day off.” Carlos mumbled sleepily, swaying slightly in place when Cecil turned to gape at him.

“I’ll ask you again when you’re more awake, darling. Get undressed for me?” Cecil said, shaking himself with a laugh and watching as Carlos stumbled out of his clothes, one arm around Khoshekh at all times as the Chimaera refused to float or be put down. “Here, let me take Khoshekh for you,” Cecil stepped over, hands out to take the purring cat only to have Carlos shake his head, a frown firmly on his face.

“I’ve got it.” Carlos huffed, shrugging out of one side of his lab coat and shirt, passing Khoshekh into his other arm and dropping the clothing off the other side.

Cecil raised his hands, palms towards Carlos as he grinned, watching the scientist fumble at his belt buckle, growling impatiently until he got it undone and let his pants drop, only to nearly trip as they got caught around his ankles, his shoes keeping them from falling off entirely. Carlos whined softly, looking to Cecil with pleading, sleepy, eyes until the writer knelt and untied Carlos’ laces, guiding him to lift his feet one at a time and sliding each shoe, sock and then pant leg off them.

“Okay, underwear off and into the bath, darling Carlos.” Cecil said softly, grabbing the jar of bath salts and pouring a generous number of the lavender scented crystals into the bathwater before turning the taps off. “I can leave you to soak if you want, or sit here and talk.” Cecil murmured, dragging his fingertips through Carlos’ hair as the scientist stepped into the bath, sighing happily as he sank into the hot waters.

“Wash my hair?” Carlos asked, head tipped back against the porcelain and eyes shut gently with his face pointed ever so slightly in Cecil’s direction.

“Certainly, sweet Carlos.” Cecil hummed, bustling over to collect a clean washcloth and the shampoo and conditioner bottles from the cabinet before returning to Carlos’ side, kneeling on the tiles and guiding the scientist to dunk his head and soak his hair.

As Cecil gently rubbed the shampoo into Carlos’ curls, the scientist starting rambling on about his day’s work, scratching slowly behind Khoshekh’s ears as he spoke. Cecil hummed and nodded along, not really following the scientist’s half-finished thoughts and mumbled words but appreciating the effort all the same, until he got Carlos to dunk his head again, scrubbing the shampoo out of Carlos’ hair and letting him up again. Carlos got less coherent as Cecil started massaging the conditioner into his curls, his words trailing off into low hums until the scientist gave up all together, just humming and breathing as Cecil worked the conditioner in thoroughly, humming a soft tune to himself as he worked.

By the time Cecil had the conditioner rubbed in fully, looping Carlos’ hair up into a bun for the conditioner to sit for a few minutes, the scientist was asleep, snoring quietly with his arms looped loosely around Khoshekh. Cecil chuckled lowly, scrubbing slowly down Carlos’ arms to work out the bloodstains around his wrists, working gently and with one arm at a time so as to not disturb either the cat or the scientist with his work.

When the bloodstains were satisfactorily rubbed out, Cecil slid Carlos’ arm back into the bath tub, leaning against the outside and humming to himself as he waited for the time to pass before he should wash out the conditioner. Cecil yawned quietly, muffling it with his hand before he turned around, gently tugging the hair tie out of Carlos’ hair and guiding his head forwards, lowering it slowly and keeping one hand cupped under the scientist’s head as Cecil started washing the conditioner out, smiling fondly at Carlos’ soft sleep noises.

“Come on, Carlos.” Cecil said when he was done washing the conditioner out, nudging Carlos more or less awake. “Time for bed.”

Carlo hummed softly, swatting Cecil away and pulling himself upright slowly and standing in the bath while the water dripped off him. Cecil grabbed a towel and wrapped it around the scientist’s shoulders, tucking it over his arms so Khoshekh was caught in it too. Carlos leaned into Cecil’s hands, letting the writer guide him out of the bath and use a second towel to dry his legs and back before leading him out of the bathroom to get dressed for bed.

Cecil got Carlos into a pair of pants and a loose t-shirt, towelling his hair dry and braiding it loosely before tucking the scientist into bed and darting back into the bathroom to drain the tub. Cecil crawled into bed himself, reaching over Carlos to turn off the bedside lamp and curling close to the scientist and Khoshekh as he drifted to sleep himself.

The next day was hectic.  Over breakfast, Carlos revealed he was serious about getting Cecil to move in with him, and the pair spent the day packing and relocating boxes of Cecil’s stuff to Carlos’ apartment, then unpacking, leaving more traces of Cecil around the apartment, books on the living room shelves, a typewriter sitting at the head of the dining room table, half the closet space now taken by suits in brighter and more obnoxious patterns than Carlos had ever worn.  Before starting, they had left Khoshekh in Kayali’s care, so that Cecil and Carlos would not have to close the apartment door all the time, and by the time they were done, they were too exhausted to think about retrieving him just yet. They slumped over each other on the couch, Carlos’ legs across Cecil’s lap and Cecil’s face pressed against Carlos’ chest as they took in the apartment, their apartment now. Almost before Carlos knew it, his eyelids were drooping heavily, and Cecil snored softly against his chest. Carlos removed his glasses and settled more deeply into the couch cushions, one arm curled loosely over Cecil’s shoulders. Slowly, he felt himself succumbing to a deep, content sleep. Carlos yawned and tightened his grip on Cecil, shifting slightly to get more comfortable. Tomorrow would be soon enough to pick up Khoshekh, soon enough to set his plans for Janice into motion; for now, he couldn’t bring himself to move.

The rest of the week passed in a blur for Carlos, spending time double checking on Janice’s healing and the function of her legs, as well as ensuring her Mental conditioning was going according to plan. It still felt weird to come home to Khoshekh and Cecil, both as permanent fixtures in his apartment, and Carlos forgot far too many dates for Cecil to be happy with, but he was making it work.

Janice was coming along nicely as well, which left Carlos all but skipping home many nights. The cuts on her stomach had healed seamlessly, not even an indication of scarring across the skin, and her legs were able to move independently of anyone else’s touch, thought they were still too shaky to carry her weight properly. And the mental conditioning… Tenenbaum had the course of mind-altering recordings and slideshows absolutely perfected and Janice was adapting to them wonderfully, no longer trying to get away from the Big Daddies when presented with them, and instead welcoming them, letting them pick her up and cradle her while she hummed them a tune.

“If it keeps going at this rate, her legs will be able to hold her in a week or so. And then we can take her through the Proving Grounds.” Carlos said, taking notes on his clipboard as he followed Tenenbaum through the halls of the Little Wonders facility, making their way to the Big Daddy labs to choose a suitable partner for Janice’s first time through the Proving Grounds and, hopefully, beyond.

“Perfect. Seems like you’re doing well on that, Doctor Ramirez.” Tenenbaum said, pushing through a door into the filing room and getting a lab assistant to pass her the files of potential Big Daddies for Janice. “No, no, maybe, no, hmmm not likely.” Tenenbaum muttered, passing the files across to Carlos one by one as she skimmed through them. “Do we have more or are they all fully bonded already?”

“They’re all taken otherwise, and we’ve found four girls to a Daddy is too many, they start fighting over him.” One of the assistants said, swallowing loudly as Tenenbaum fixed her gaze on them.

“Interesting. Well.” Tenenbaum huffed and turned away from the assistant, back to face Carlos. “It would be beneficial if we could have her father. I feel like he would be the perfect Daddy for her. But for now, choose one of those two.” Tenenbaum gestured to the two ‘maybe’ files, waiting for Carlos to nod in acknowledgement before she breezed towards the door. “We start the Proving Grounds on Friday.” She said as she left, leaving Carlos to pass the files of the rejected Big Daddies back to the lab assistants and tucking the others away against his clipboard for later study.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always you can find me at [lonelyboyinthelab](http://lonelyboyinthelab.tumblr.com) on tumblr  
> and i will do my best to respond to comments and everything here.  
> thanks  
> <3

**Author's Note:**

> [ Here's some gameplay of the start of Bioshock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGV2ywzZOeE) It's just the first 8 minutes of the game and includes the Lighthouse, the Bathysphere and Andrew Ryan's Introductory video. (You don't have to watch the full thing because really the important parts are the Ryan video and the first look at Rapture)  
> [ This is the version of La Mer that plays in the Lighthouse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcrih-8t3TI)  
> [And for those of you who want to know about the history of Rapture](http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Rapture) there's a link to the Bioshock Wiki page on Rapture. Some of this information is key to this story, in a way, but most of it is just really cool and can help you build an understanding of the universe of this fic if you haven't played Bioshock before.
> 
> And as always, Comments and kudos are much appreciated, as is coming into my [Tumblr ask box](http://lonelyboyinthelab.tumblr.com) and screaming at me there  
> <3  
> Thanks for reading and I'll see you next chapter!


End file.
